


the world will never be the same

by Slumber



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: And They Were Teammates, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Introspection, M/M, Mentioned: Bokuto/Kuroo, Mentioned: Past OiHina, Minor: Tsukishima/Yamaguchi, Missing Scene, Post-Time Skip, time skip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:13:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24181135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber
Summary: A tall, tall wall looms in front of him. To see the view from the top he crosses a wide, wide sea, and in this juncture between water and sky, this sliver of sun-soaked coast and winding roads half a world from everything he ever knew, he digs bare feet in coarse, uneven sand, reaches high, and begins his measured climb.Hinata crosses an ocean, scales a wall, and falls in love.Or: Time Skip Hinata, with a little less skipping.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & Kageyama Tobio, Hinata Shouyou & Karasuno Volleyball Club, Hinata Shouyou & MSBY Black Jackals, Hinata Shouyou & Yamaguchi Tadashi, Hinata Shouyou/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 139
Kudos: 710





	1. Chapter 1

A tall, tall wall looms in front of him. To see the view from the top he crosses a wide, wide sea, and in this juncture between water and sky, this sliver of sun-soaked coast and winding roads half a world from everything he ever knew, he digs bare feet in coarse, uneven sand, reaches high, and begins his measured climb.

He pays the price in fumbled words around a language he’s just starting to learn, the quiet disinterest of a roommate he wishes he knew more about, long hours playing and working and training and playing. 

Playing in the sand with less than half the players on his side of the court cuts him back down to nothing, reduces him to worse than where he started, but keeping the ball in the air in the wide orange courts of the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium feels the same as keeping the ball in the air on the beaches of Rio, so though the sun bears down with merciless heat and the wind doles out luck with fickle whim, Hinata finds his footing, step by bloody step, in sunburned skin and aching calves and reddened arms raw from countless receives. 

His sister squints at him through the grainy video on his phone, pausing in the middle of her tinny, slightly garbled story about deciding which club she ended up deciding to join in junior high, and asks him if he's putting enough sunscreen on. 

"You're red enough as it is," she says. "No use turning full tomato."

"But why aren't you joining the volleyball club?" he wants to know. "Don't you like it?"

The look she gives him is a little exasperated. "I like all sports," she says. She's good at most of them too. "But I like baseball more. And Ami-chan and I agreed. I gotta go, I'll be late for school."

It's early in the morning in Miyagi. Hinata's just gotten back home from work. "Okay, talk to you later," he says, and she hangs up after waving him off. He stares at his phone for a moment, not sure why he's frowning. It's not like he could've shown Natsu how to spike tossed balls.

When he goes to sleep he dreams of salt-sticky air and legs rooted in concrete, a ball falling just out of reach, so he plays and works and trains and plays until he learns where each aimless road and side street leads, until his mouth moves around the shape of new vowels and newer consonants with growing confidence, until his heels are calloused and the sun soaks him in a permanent tan, until he can guess, more often than not, the way the wind will blow, and when he jumps—between the scent of the sea burning his lungs and the open air whipping around his bare legs—it feels like flying again.

He gets used to the sand and the wind and the two-person team the same way he gets used to the bike routes and the sticky summer evenings, the brine in the air and the condensation around a chilled bottle of beer in his hand, beans in his meals and dinners with Heitor and Nice, who he’s been so lucky to know. 

Nice is _great_ —lively and fun and happy to teach Hinata how she cooks her famous moqueca. Heitor reminds him a little bit of Asahi, but he treats Hinata like they're the same age, even though he's even older than Asahi and he's been trying to propose to Nice forever, which is not something Hinata can imagine any of his friends doing right now, when they're barely getting started.

 _Guess what_ , Yamaguchi texts him over LINE one day, but Hinata's at work and doesn't see it until it's late in the afternoon in Brazil and so much later that it's early morning in Japan. 

It's a good thing Yamaguchi was never the patient type anyway, because the message is followed by a string of updates that leaves Hinata no room to guess. _He kissed me_ , one message reads, followed by, _after dinner with Yachi_ , and _he walked me to my dorm and he just sorta stood there for a while_ and _I guess he was trying to gather up the nerve to confess??_ and _then he said a lot of things and something about my eyes sparkling and I squeaked and it was embarrassing but he just laughed and kissed me anyway._

 _So I think I have a boyfriend now_ , the last message says.

 _YAMAGUCHI_ , is Hinata's reply, not because he doesn't know who Yamaguchi's talking about, but exactly because he does.

Yamaguchi texts back with a _!!!_ and it looks like the kiss has kept him up long past midnight, so Hinata calls him up and Yamaguchi sounds breathless and giddy when he recounts what happened.

A few days later Yachi tells him the part of the story he didn't hear, the part he would only have witnessed over the multiple weekly dinners where this has been, in her words, "a long time coming", in the ever-decreasing space between them when they sat next to each other, the lingering contact and the stolen glances, the tender way Tsukishima spoke not just _to_ Yamaguchi but anytime he was around, the way Yamaguchi's teasing began to border toward the flirtatious. 

"Tsukishima asked me for advice on how to confess, I thought I was going to _die_ ," Yachi tells him. "Oh no! Don't tell him I told you that, he told me not to tell you, but—"

Hinata laughs. "I won't tell him," he promises. "I can't believe it finally happened."

"Me neither," Yachi says, before she asks Hinata what he's been up to since they last spoke.

It's almost midnight when the call ends, and Hinata's still smiling when he swipes out of the chat with Yachi. He scrolls down his contact list, intending to send Tsukishima _something_ to let him know he knows, even though he's sure Tsukishima already does, when he finds the only other teammate from his year that he's not talked to lately.

He clicks on that contact instead, the last messages between them a cursory greeting for the new year. He can measure the years since he left in a span of lines and one-word replies, but Kageyama was never much of a texter. They spoke on the court, in practice, in the spin of a ball set perfectly to the center of Hinata's palm. Sometimes in sound effects and usually in insults, but Kageyama always came through clearest whenever they played. 

His thumb hovers over the screen. Kageyama's in Oita now, so maybe he hasn't heard about Yamaguchi and Tsukishima yet. But that isn't Hinata's story to tell.

Instead he navigates back to Tsukishima's contact and sends him a smirking emoji before he goes to sleep, not bothering to stay up just to see Tsukishima leave him on read. 

This time when he dreams it's of the sea in his mouth and saltwater in his lungs, his arms burning with the exertion of cutting through cresting waves stroke after stubborn stroke until water turns to air and he begins to float away, so far away he can see the whole span of the world tens of thousands of kilometers beneath him.

* * *

Hinata leaves Brazil in the summer and arrives in Japan for the start of spring. Yamaguchi picks him up at the airport, hair cut even shorter than the last picture he sent over but the wide beam of his smile is the same.

"You got so much tanner!" he exclaims, snickering as Hinata shivers from the cold. "Two years isn't long enough to forget the seasons here. D'you need an extra coat?"

"M'fine!" Hinata says, digging one out from his carry-on and putting it on. And, since he's already got his bag open, he also pulls out the souvenirs he brought back for Yamaguchi, snacks and candy and— 

"This is a very sparkly shirt."

Hinata grins. "That one's for Tsukishima. Y'know, since he likes things that sparkle so much. Like your—"

"Do you want a ride home or not!" 

Hinata cackles, but watching Yamaguchi's ears turn bright red is worth nearly getting stranded at the airport.

He's only in Miyagi for a few days before he has to take the trains down to Osaka for the MSBY Black Jackals tryouts, but he squeezes in a dinner with Yachi and Yamaguchi at the end of the week.

"Tsukki's got too many exams to study for," Yamaguchi says in apology for his boyfriend. _Boyfriend_ , Hinata marvels privately, grinning at the reminder. "I'll take the first round, though. What beer do you want?"

Yamaguchi already knows Yachi's usual order, but the two of them consult Hinata on what else he wants to eat with their drinks. He picks out food he hasn't had in a long, long time, food he doesn't remember he misses until he sees them on the menu. If he orders a little too much no one points it out, the three of them instead settling into a comfortable chatter that feels, too, like something he hasn't realized he hasn't had in a long, long time, until it's there in front of him again.

There is a lot to catch up on—Yamaguchi's job search and Yachi's internship, where Yamaguchi and Tsukishima are going for Golden Week and the disastrous string of dates Yachi's gone on. Some of it Hinata already knows, some details Yamaguchi and Yachi take turns sharing, and it's good to hear the recounting like this too, where it's less about what happens in the order that they happen but more about sharing the moments during which they first unfolded, reinforced by the retellings afterward that add a gloss of mortified comedy around the parts that were painful, an extra layer of shine around the parts that were kinder.

But Hinata has a different set of memories to draw from, and his stories sound strange and jumbled even as he tells them, despite the way Yamaguchi and Yachi lean in, asking what happens next and laughing at all the right parts. Heitor and Nice and Pedro and _Rio_ are his in a way he can't share completely, the sand and the sun and those countless, endless games on the beach muted echoes of what they felt like, what they meant, when they are filtered down and distilled into anecdotes relayed in between bites of karaage.

There is so much he wants to tell them, so many things he wants to hear about. 

There is only so much he can.

The restaurant is closing down when they finally leave, exchanging the beer for water in the last hour and a half but keeping the food coming. Yamaguchi offers to drive Hinata home and he accepts gratefully, climbing into the passenger side and sinking down into the seat with a contented hum.

"Knock 'em out at tryouts, okay?" Yamaguchi says, his voice quieter now there's no background din to project his voice over. "D'you think you'll come back to Miyagi after those?"

Hinata nods. "Bokuto-san says they should let me know within a week, at least, but if they end up signing me I'll come back here to pack up my stuff and head down, I guess. If they don't, the Red Falcons have tryouts in April, so I'll go get ready for those, but it might make sense to stay in Osaka for a little longer."

"Sounds like a packing nightmare."

"It's—" He packed up his life once before, and he hasn't actually unpacked since returning. The uncertainty of packing for one week or five doesn't seem that daunting when he's still moving between two points, but it's a little surreal that Miyagi is now only a stop in that journey. It had been the beginning, once. "I'm used to it, I guess."

"If you need a ride to the train station—"

"My mom says she can drop me off. Thanks though, Yamaguchi."

"Anytime," Yamaguchi says, and Hinata knows he means it. He waves him goodbye when they get to his house, checks his phone to see that Yachi's let them both know she's made it home too.

He tries to be quiet when he enters the house, but the light in his sister's room filters out from the edges of her door, along with the muffled sound of one side of a conversation.

"Isn't it past your bedtime?" he calls out—he's not allowed to open her door without knocking now, a rule she spells out upon his arrival, before he could even accidentally break it—and Natsu pauses in the middle of whatever it is she's saying to sigh audibly. He's only seen it thrice since his return but Hinata's sure she's rolling her eyes too.

"It's Friday, doofus! Go to sleep!"

* * *

Hinata doesn't go to sleep right away. He wants to blame jet lag on it, but he's been home almost a week already, and he's weighed by the usual weariness at the end of a day that should draw him to sleep. But there's a restlessness niggling at the corners of his consciousness too, from something he can't quite place. His phone pings with an SNS notification, and when he opens the app he finds Yachi's tagged him on the picture the three of them took at the restaurant that evening. 

_Look who's back!_ the caption reads, and everyone must still be awake because he recognizes at least half the likes and replies that pop up not long after. It makes him smile, seeing who Yachi's still got on her contacts, but before he can join in on the online reunion a LINE message comes in for him. 

_You're back in Miyagi?_

He swipes over to reply. _Only for a few more days. Then tryouts in Osaka. You're still in Kyushu, right?_

_Nagoya for the next few days. Final starts tomorrow._

_That's tomorrow??_ Hinata's gonna have to catch the broadcast. _You gonna win?_

_What do you think? Trying out for the Black Jackals?_

_Yeah, I'm heading down next week._

_Try not to suck._

_Of course I won't suck! Bakageyama!!!_ Hinata sticks his tongue out at his screen, willing all his annoyance southward to the general direction of Nagoya. Kageyama doesn't see it, but he leaves Hinata on read, so Hinata thinks maybe Kageyama knows, anyway.

He scrolls back up their chat history, finding the burst of messages they traded last summer. It starts almost the same way, Hinata asking Kageyama if he's gonna be in Rio for the Olympics. They'd agreed to try and meet up, but finding a pocket of time they were both free and in the general vicinity of each other between both of their schedules turned out trickier than anticipated. In the end Hinata was saddled with more hours at work and had barely any time to even catch any of Kageyama's matches except through the coverage on TV, and Kageyama didn't check his phone often enough to be able to do anything last-minute.

Now is probably a harder time to try and coordinate anything. Kageyama's busy and Hinata's going to Osaka. Does Kageyama even go back to Miyagi anymore? He's not sure. But they haven't seen each other since graduation, and Hinata wonders if maybe they won't see each other again until they're back on the court.

Maybe that's okay. The court is where they talk the loudest, anyway.

* * *

Hinata learns just how safe of a driver Yamaguchi actually has been when Bokuto picks him up at the train station and then proceeds to _almost_ ignore every rule on the road, whizzing by just before orange lights turn red and turning every corner a little too sharply without quite slowing down. 

Hinata's pretty glad he didn't eat a heavier lunch on the train than the two bentos he picked up at the station, but Bokuto keeps a light stream of chatter going that distracts him too, switching from acting as a Hirakata city tour guide ("They open up a skating rink here in the winter and it's lit up all nice then, you should check it out when they do!" "That store over there? _Best_ sporting goods stock in all of Osaka." "Oh, the guys and I usually go down that side street for post-practice meals—owner's a big fan!") to catching up on Hinata's time in Brazil ("What was playing beach volleyball like?" "Did you ever meet Giba?" "Is it true the seasons are the other way around over there?") to catching Hinata up on their friends ("Akaashi's working in manga now! Yeah! He's an editor over at—" "Seen Kenma yet? No? Well, since he's so famous now his schedule's been so hard to squeeze into, I don't blame you, Kuroo keeps complaining but he's like a proud dad, he's fooling no one!" "Yeah I usually go back whenever we get breaks with the team, but Kuroo's visiting this weekend actually, it's too bad you'll be back in Miyagi by then."), until they arrive at a nice-looking apartment building in a nice-looking part of the city. 

Tryouts aren't until the next day, but Bokuto's an eager host, and he gives Hinata a few minutes to drop his things off at Bokuto's apartment and get comfortable before they try to figure out what to do with the rest of the day. 

"I could take you around if you wanna get a feel for the city," he offers. "Hirapa's still open—it's really cool, but no one wants to go on all the roller coasters with me! We could get something to eat, too, or if you like, we can play a little bit to get you warmed up for tomorrow, and _then_ get something to eat." 

Hinata isn't sure roller coasters would help his stomach just at that moment, but the last suggestion piques his interest. "Where can we play?"

"We got a gym we can practice in," Bokuto says, grinning. "C'mon, lemme show you."

Bokuto texts a few of his teammates to see who's around to play before they head out, but the drive to the gym is mercifully short. It's a decent facility with no one else around at this hour, and once they've warmed up, Bokuto starts tossing balls at Hinata for spiking practice, though he looks like he's eager to be the one hitting the balls too.

"Do you wanna switch for a bit, Bokuto-san?" he asks, grateful for the chance to loosen stiff and tight muscles after spending practically the whole day sitting in trains.

"Nah, let's keep going. You look like you've been in good shape," Bokuto says, giving Hinata a thumbs up. "Are you feeling good about tomorrow?"

"He better be. Your tosses are so inconsistent, he keeps having to change his approach. I'm surprised he's hit as many of them as he has." 

Miya Atsumu strolls onto the court, his head at an angle, lips curled up and eyes gleaming when he catches Hinata's gaze. "It _is_ Shouyou-kun," he drawls, and something about the way he says that in that Kansai lilt, with the curl of his lip growing into a wider smirk, makes Hinata's stomach feel a little bit like he's back in Bokuto's car. "Brazil looks good on ya."

"Atsumu-san," he says. "Did you come to play with us?"

Atsumu chuckles. "I thought it was the other way around," he says, before finally turning to Bokuto. "Inunaki says he'll be here soon, but we can't go too hard before practice tomorrow. The captain'll know."

"It's just a warm-up," Bokuto says. "Wanna do a two-on-two?"

Atsumu casts Hinata a sidelong glance. "Sure, why not. Just like beach volleyball, right, Shouyou-kun? Why don't we—"

"I call dibs on Hinata!" Bokuto decides with a grin.

Atsumu smirks. "If ye're that keen on losing, be my guest." 

"Oh, don't worry," Hinata shoots back. It's been too long since he's played any match, and his entire body itches to get on the court for real. "We won't lose."

* * *

Inunaki gets caught up in rush hour traffic, so the three of them do a light passing drill to while away the time. It doesn't take a lot of focus to do, which is why Bokuto and Atsumu end up bickering over where to go for dinner after.

"What's there in Osaka we can't have here in Hirakata?" Bokuto wants to know, and when Atsumu just snorts and starts ticking off specific restaurants, he huffs and adds, "But it's the same kind of food!" 

"It's better," Atsumu points out. "And Osaka's not too far."

"But we want Hinata to play with us _here_ , not with the Red Falcons!" 

"That's what this is about, Bokkun?" Atsumu laughs. He passes the ball to Hinata, his lips twitching with amusement. It feels like they're sharing a secret. "I don't think he's going to care about which city has the better food when Hirakata has the better team. Isn't that right, Shouyou-kun?"

Hinata nods, fumbling the pass and sending it right back to Atsumu instead of Bokuto. "This team is my first choice!" he declares. "Thank you for helping me get warmed up!"

There's a flash that looks like surprise on Atsumu's face, but it disappears quicker than it arrives. "If anything," he says, tossing the ball toward Bokuto, "I'm surprised he's still interested in our team after he's spent more than five minutes in a car with you driving."

"What's that supposed to mean!" Bokuto asks, looking first to Atsumu then to Hinata, who laughs nervously.

He's lucky the guy who must be Inunaki shows up then, dressed comfortably in sweats and a loose shirt. "Guess you're all still here," he says with a yawn as he scratches at his stomach, his movements languid like a cat. But he glances over at Hinata and his gaze is sharp. "This the guy?"

"Yeah!" Bokuto exclaims, introducing the two of them to each other. "Tsum-Tsum and I thought we'd play a little two-on-two for now. You and Tsum-Tsum, me and Hinata. Just one set, then dinner?"

Inunaki shrugs. "Sure, let's do it. I'm already warmed up."

Atsumu jogs over to Inunaki's side of the court, holding the ball under his arms. "I haven't seen him play in a while," he tells his teammate, "but there's no need to go easy on him. Shouyou-kun can fly."

* * *

One set almost turns to two, but Inunaki outvotes all three of them with sheer stubbornness. "You promised me dinner," he tells Bokuto balefully. "You want me to text the captain, tell him we've been playing?"

Neither Bokuto nor Atsumu put up a fight after that.

On the matter of where to eat they all decide on an izakaya in Hirakata, Bokuto winning out the issue on location but only after Atsumu concedes with an offhanded, "The closer we go, the less you'll have to drive."

The place is starting to get busy when they arrive, but they must go there a lot because the staff seems to recognize them, leading them to a booth toward the back. Bokuto slides into the bench after Inunaki, so Hinata takes the seat next to Atsumu. 

"What kind of beer do they drink in Brazil?" Atsumu asks, handing him the menu after barely even giving it a look. He must already know what he's ordering. 

"They have different brands, but it's similar to the ones here," Hinata says, picking out the Asahi. He usually got the cheapest option, which also ended up being the most watered down, like soda instead of alcohol. It worked just as well, though—Hinata never did end up becoming much of a drinker.

Atsumu hums, and when the waiter arrives to take their order he asks for hot sake. "I don't really like beer," he says, grinning. 

"What were you doing in Brazil, anyway?" Inunaki asks, settling his gaze on Hinata, who's never quite stopped feeling like Inunaki's been sizing him up. "You really went to play beach volleyball?"

"Looks like it worked, though, didn't it?" Bokuto grins. "We kicked your asses!"

"Atsumu was distracted," Inunaki shoots back at the same moment Atsumu says, "Inunaki was phoning it in." 

They glare at each other. "I was _not_ ," they insist at the same time, their brewing argument interrupted by the arrival of their orders.

Hinata answers the question when everyone's settled with their food, the bickering forgotten. "There was still a lot I didn't know how to do on my own," he says. It's not the first time he's been asked, but the words are lighter on his tongue now than they usually are. Maybe it's because it's done, and the justification is needed less now that the decision is in the past. Or maybe it's because he's with a group of people for whom the answer doesn't mean diverging paths ahead. As far as the Black Jackals are concerned, this is what leads Hinata to them, not the other way around.

"And now?" Atsumu asks. His eyes are bright with thinly guised curiosity, so Hinata takes the time to think about his answer.

A tall, tall wall loomed in front of him. To see the view from the top he crossed a wide, wide sea. He began his measured climb. He paid the price.

He wonders, too, what will happen next. But for now, he settles with— 

"And now… I'm back."

* * *

Hinata had lingered, on his last day of high school. 

Their graduation ceremony takes place in the morning, a thousand and one pictures taken sometime after. There's a large dinner with everyone on the team later too, but Kageyama's family is celebrating somewhere else and his flight leaves early the next day, so between the ceremony and the dinner, on the last day of high school, Hinata lingers.

"Brazil, huh?"

Hinata tosses the ball in the air, puts his forearms together to bump it back up. "Not for another year," he says. He's got a training regimen to stick to, sponsorships to find, a lot of other things to figure out, and then— "But, yeah."

"Beach volleyball's not the same as indoor volleyball."

"I know that," Hinata says, moving to receive the ball in a dig, and if he chucks it a little too pointedly at Kageyama's face that's not his fault. "I'm not an idiot."

But Kageyama's ready for the ball; he just bumps it back at him, and the idle play turns into a passing game, out there in the courtyard of the high school late in the afternoon when most of the students have gone home. "If you really were an idiot, you wouldn't have gotten any of those offers from any of those universities." 

That's what Tsukishima is doing. Yamaguchi too, maybe, but he didn't pick a university based on the strength of their volleyball team. He just wanted to enjoy his university years, he'd said, and play to stay active. For fun. 

Hinata did have the choice. The schools that offered him a spot weren't bad. Their teams were even better. He can learn from those teams too—he can play intercollegiate volleyball, he can hone his skills and then try out for professional teams, maybe even get scouted. That definitely won't happen if he plays a different sport in a different continent.

But he played three years with a formidable team and it isn't enough, not yet. He's not where he needs to be. He's not where players like Kageyama are.

"I can go to university later if I have to," he says. 

"I know." Kageyama keeps his eyes on the ball, bumps it back to Hinata in an easy arc. "Brazil is far."

"Farther than Oita." Hinata cracks a smile as he returns the volley. "I win."

"That's not how it works, you dumbass," Kageyama grumbles, catching the ball instead of returning it. "Yeah, Oita's far too, I guess."

They'd looked up how to get there—eight hours total over two bullet trains and a regional train, and that's only from the main stations—before they realized the Schweiden Adlers were paying for Kageyama to fly down there and save them all the trouble of losing Kageyama somewhere in central Japan. Yachi had even written down detailed instructions for getting to Sendai Station, too, her handwriting very neat and careful. She almost went to have it laminated, in case Kageyama spilled food on it along the way.

Oita's very far. Not as far as Rio, but once you leave Miyagi, what's the difference, really?

"Why'd you stop?" Hinata asks, frowning at the frown Kageyama's wearing. He's squinting, or constipated, it's hard to tell which.

"What happened to your button?" Hinata's face heats up, and Kageyama must take that for an answer, because his eyes grow a little wide. "Someone asked for it?"

"No!" he denies hotly, then winces. "Well, yes, but—"

"You dumbass, you know what it means, right?"

"I'm not a dumbass, yes I know what it means, Yamaguchi warned me!" He'd laughed it off, of course, because Yamaguchi's face had looked very grave for such a silly, impossible notion, but this morning Hanano-san cornered him by the gates, and then Yukino-san looked like she was heading his way, and then— 

"Was it Mashima-san?" Kageyama asks.

"What."

"Tokita?" 

" _What_. Are you just guessing or—" Hinata shakes his head. "I didn't give it to anyone. I took it off. But I didn't wanna lie about not having it, so!"

Kageyama blinks. "...So?"

"You're gonna laugh. Don't laugh."

Kageyama doesn't promise, but the look on his face is more thoughtful and curious than anything. "What'd you do with it?"

Hinata scuffs his shoe along the dirt. "It's under the gym," he admits. "There was a crack in the concrete, near the steps, and Yamaguchi said it's the second button because it's the one closest to your heart." He shrugs, looking up at the sky. "Didn't really make sense anywhere else."

"Huh," is all Kageyama says. He spins the ball in his hands, like he's turning over Hinata's words in his head. "Okay," he says after a while, satisfied with the answer, and tosses the ball back at Hinata. It hits his palms with a satisfying _thwack_. 

"Let's play a real game," Hinata decides, like the whole afternoon they'd spent lingering hadn't been leading up to that.

Kageyama looks at him like he's crazy, but he doesn't point out that they're in their school uniforms, or that a one-on-one isn't much of a real game, or that it's late, and they should be heading home and getting ready for the evening. "If you mess up and break a window on your last day of school—"

"Let's use the gym, Bakageyama," Hinata says, swiping the keys from his pocket and dangling them in front of Kageyama, who narrows his eyes at him.

"I was vice captain and I don't even have the keys. I don't think even Yamaguchi would have them now."

"Yeah, but—" Hinata grins. "Yaotome likes me a lot better than he likes you."

Kageyama chucks the ball toward his face. "Shut up," he grumbles, but starts walking in the direction of the gym. 

Hinata follows after him. "I'm the one with the keys," he says, but Kageyama only picks up speed, so Hinata does too, until they're racing to get there first, one last time for one last game.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please mind the tag updates! ♥

Hinata is back only a few days in Miyagi when he gets the offer from the Black Jackals. The manager calls him up with the news, the email with the contract arriving not long after. When is he able to come back down to Hirakata, the manager wants to know. 

"When's the soonest you want me there?" Hinata asks.

They agree on the following Monday to give Hinata time to get ready, the team to set him up with an apartment, the paperwork to get finalized. Hinata is told to contact someone with the team's front office staff so they can book him a flight, and Hinata says he will, and he is told to make sure he's ready for training camp, and he says he will. It isn't until he hangs up that he realizes his hand is shaking, and his breathing is ragged, and he's going to play for the Black Jackals.

He calls his mom, he texts Kenma, he texts Heitor, and then he calls Yamaguchi. They were already planning on getting together for dinner again, but this time Yamaguchi promises he'll drag Tsukishima along too.

"In the shirt I got him?" Hinata asks, hopeful.

Yamaguchi laughs. "I'm his boyfriend, not a god."

In the end being Tsukishima's boyfriend is enough, because Hinata arrives at the yakiniku spot and finds Tsukishima slouched in his seat, jacket zipped and pulled tightly around something that looks like it might be a pink shirt. Yamaguchi, sitting next to him, waves Hinata over. 

"Yachi's running late, but she said we should order ahead," he says. "We got drinks coming, though!"

"Thanks Yamaguchi!" Hinata says, grinning at Tsukishima. "You look even grumpier on person than in all the pictures!"

"And you don't look any taller than when you left," Tsukishima shoots back.

"Ahh, I missed this," Yamaguchi laughs between them. The drinks arrive just then, and he raises a glass to the air, probably to cut off the bickering before it goes too far. "We'll do another one when Yachi gets here, but for now: a toast, to Hinata and the Black Jackals!"

Hinata grins, taking a swig of the beer. "Thanks for coming, guys."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world!" Yamaguchi assures him.

"But it's just like you to show up only to leave again, huh?" Tsukishima says. His gaze is narrowed, but there's nothing malicious in his tone.

"Well, at least we'll be in the same timezones this time," Yamaguchi muses.

"Not much of a difference as it is, anyway," Tsukishima says. "Between all our schedules it's tough enough to even do these dinners weekly—and we're all in Miyagi."

"Internships," Yamaguchi explains to Hinata. "And Tsukki here is doing those _and_ playing for the Frogs."

Tsukishima frowns, and it's funny how it happens but when directed at Yamaguchi it only softens his features. It might just be the effect Yamaguchi has on him. "The season's over," he says.

"You're still training pretty regularly with the team, though." 

Yamaguchi doesn't seem to mind, and when he tells Hinata that Tsukishima works very hard at practice it's with a swell of pride. Beside him, Tsukishima squirms uncomfortably, like he isn't sure how to react to Yamaguchi's earnestness in front of anyone else. He stays pressed against Yamaguchi’s side, his expression never quite recovering from Yamaguchi's words, staying soft and fond in a way Hinata thinks he'd always maybe fought against until he realized it was a losing battle all along.

So this is what a long time coming looks like, what happens when the space between shrinks down to nothing and the hesitant, lingering touch turns into an easy slide of palm against palm, fingers twining together in a loose, casual hold. Hinata can't help the smile on his face, which Tsukishima catches but doesn't comment on. 

It's a good look on them.

"Sorry I'm late!" Yachi says by way of greeting, sliding into the seat next to Hinata and giving everyone a bright smile. "Tsukki! Glad you could make it after all!"

"Me? You've seen me more in the last six months than you've seen Hinata in the last two years."

"Yeah, but you know what I mean!" she says with a snort, and it isn't like she hasn't grown more confident over the three years she managed the volleyball club back in high school but she carries herself with a kind of familiarity that must have been cultivated over the last two years. This is the girl Tsukishima had decided to go to for advice on confessing to Yamaguchi, after all. It makes sense she's this much at ease around Tsukishima now too.

"And you're the one who almost couldn't make it," Tsukishima adds.

"It's not my fault!" Yachi protests, and the conversation turns into the emergency she had to help handle at her internship, told with a mix of mortification and exuberant storytelling, enhanced by the Greek chorus of Yamaguchi and Hinata's reactions. But all's well that ends well, or at least in ordering another round of drinks, and Yamaguchi pipes up with his own horror story from his internship the other week.

"So," Tsukishima says at the next natural lull in their conversation. "Tell us about the tryouts."

"How's Bokuto-san doing?" Yachi wants to know.

"Are they flying you down there too?" Yamaguchi asks.

Hinata answers the questions one at a time, cheeks warm with beer and his tone lighthearted, but he's caught in an unsettling sense of déjà vu, something that feels like a cold, fist-sized piece of stone sinking low in his stomach.

Hirakata may be in the same country now, but it's far from Miyagi. Not farther than Oita, but once you leave Miyagi, what's the difference, really?

* * *

A tall, tall wall looms in front of him. To see the view from the top he crosses a wide, wide sea, learns to leap out of coarse, heavy sand the same way he learns to sprout from unyielding concrete, only so he can return from across the sea and continue the arduous climb.

It doesn't take as long as he thinks to get used to the hard floors of the court and the still air of being indoors, and even the instincts that come with sharing a court among six players instead of two comes back to him in time, resurfacing in muscle memory that didn't disappear entirely after his time in Rio. It's still there in the years he spent in Karasuno, on the national stage, layered underneath the years he spent in Rio, along the coast. 

The Black Jackals are placed in a rigorous, exacting training schedule that leaves him a new, satisfying kind of exhausted at the end of each day. Eventually he gets used to that too, to the drills and the schedule and just how much to eat to keep up with it all. His spot on the roster is not guaranteed—of the handful of them at tryouts three of them are signed to the 21-man team, and Sakusa Kiyoomi is scouted and signed right out of university. Four rookies, twenty-one players. Only six on the court at any given time.

But he works hard, as he's always done. He settles into a routine not unlike the one he had back in Brazil, finds a new rhythm of food-meditation-exercise-food-practice-food. The apartment the team gets him is small but comfortable, located near groceries and markets and the training facility. He gets a bike and takes that to practice, to shopping, to exploring the city, taking pictures and sending them to the group chat and Kenma. Bokuto adds him to the Black Jackals group chat, which is mostly a stream of practice reminders (Meian), dinner invites (Bokuto), and intercultural exchange via meme (Atsumu, Oliver, Adriah). He finds a good spot for ramen and starts recognizing the konbini clerks by name when he picks up pork buns after practice. He learns the izakaya they went to the night before tryouts, and continue to go, is called Senryou. 

"But you haven't gone to Hirapa yet?" Bokuto asks, stuffing his face with grilled chicken. His shoulders droop with disappointment, not at Hinata but at the thought. Hinata feels guilty anyway.

"Tourists go to Hirapa," Atsumu says with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Shouyou-kun here is acclimating exactly like a local. Where's this ramen spot, hm? Is it Makkana Men, because I'd hate to disappoint you, but you can definitely do so much better than those guys." 

"There are no tourists in Hirakata," Sakusa points out, pulling his jacket up to more safely cover his arms when some of Bokuto's soup splashes his way. He gives Bokuto a severe look, but it goes unnoticed. "It's mostly locals who visit Hirapa."

"To be fair," Bokuto says thoughtfully, "it's a pretty popular date spot. There's no reason Atsumu would go since he's sing—"

"I have been to Hirapa _many times_ ," Atsumu hisses, a little shrill, and even in the dim lighting of the izakaya Hinata can see how red the tips of his ears get.

Inunaki and Sakusa share a look, then snicker into their drinks.

"We should go," Bokuto decides, accidentally cutting off Atsumu's indignant protests. "Team trip. Bonding time. Something like that!"

"That would go over well with our publicity team," Inunaki says drily. "We'll probably do some kind of appearance there at some point, anyway."

Bokuto pouts. "But we never get to do any of the fun stuff when we do those."

Hinata doesn't really have an opinion either way, so he lets Bokuto argue the merits against the demerits that Inunaki and Sakusa bring up, the food settling warm in his belly and the aches of the day's practice fading into a dull, almost-pleasant thrum beneath his veins.

Beside him, Atsumu must also have decided to let the debate rage on without him. "So," he says, not bothering to raise his voice, the question meant only for Hinata. "Was it Makkana Men? Your ramen place?"

"No, the lines are always too long there," Hinata says with a shake of his head. "It's—I don't remember the name, but it's just around the corner from my apartment. What was your place?"

He's never heard of the place Atsumu mentions, but he tells him where it is and it's not too far from where they practice. "I'm telling you, they have the best pork ramen broth I've ever had in this city."

"We should go there next time!" Hinata says, because it does sound very good and he does want to try it. He's not sure how he's feeling hungry again in the middle of dinner. 

Atsumu grins. "Yeah," he says with a half-shrug. "Let's."

* * *

It turns out, Atsumu knows a _ton_ of good places around Hirakata. When the guys let him pick where to go he takes them all over the city, always picking out unassuming-looking storefronts that hold the best-kept culinary secrets in Hirakata. Because it's all over the city the team doesn't always want to tag along—Sakusa refuses to go anywhere if he can't confirm stellar health inspection records for the past three years, Bokuto's a surprisingly picky eater, strongly preferring a few comfort foods over others, and Inunaki sometime between their practices and busy team schedule finds himself a girlfriend, placing him now with the members of the team who have significant others, and by extension a good reason to spend less time with each other out of practice.

"Can you believe _this guy_ has a girlfriend?" Atsumu asks, shoving the screen so close to Hinata's face it takes him a while to see what he's supposed to be looking at. It's a selfie from Inunaki's SNS, of him and a pretty girl with Hirakata Park's rainbow-colored ferris wheel behind them. 

"I mean. He seems nice?" Hinata offers, chewing on his noodles thoughtfully. "I think they met at the mixer Meian-san's sister put together."

"Those are always so awkward," Atsumu says with a shrug. "Weren't you invited too? You didn't go either."

"I never know what to do in them," Hinata admits, scratching the back of his neck. "The last time Yachi convinced me—"

Atsumu raises both eyebrows, resting his chin on his palm as his lips slowly curl up. "Go on, Shouyou-kun," he prompts, his eyes glimmering with amusement.

"It was embarrassing," Hinata says with a self-conscious laugh, still getting used to _Shouyou-kun_ because only Atsumu ever calls him that.

It's strange, but Atsumu has a way of pulling stories out of him without making them feel like disparate, incoherent events, whether it's about the karaoke incident at that mixer his last year of high school or the impromptu pantomiming he had to do to get back home after a particularly wild night in Rio when Heitor, the one person who knew where they had gone and how to get back, had ended up miserably drunk and both of their phones had ended up miserably dead.

It's easy, with Atsumu. Maybe it's because there's no reason to pack the entirety of what happens into a bite-sized anecdote, maybe it's because with Atsumu they're just stories and memories. Not a bridge between the years he'd gone. Not an explanation for who he's become. 

But maybe he's the one holding himself up to the echo of who he was, trying to fit himself back home with the version of himself he left behind. 

That doesn't happen in Hirakata. That doesn't happen with Atsumu. Here he isn't trying to fit into anything but being part of the team, being Atsumu's spiker, Atsumu's friend.

"So," Atsumu says, not bothering to cover up his amusement. "I guess what I'm taking away from all this is… no karaoke with the team, huh?"

Hinata laughs. "If you could help me avoid that if it ever comes up, I would be very grateful!" His phone screen lights up then with the chime of a new message, and Atsumu eyes it with some interest.

"Your Karasuno friends?" he asks, leaning over when Hinata shows him the selfie Yachi sends of the three of them having dinner. Yamaguchi and Yachi are wearing twin smiles, and Tsukishima's not frowning, which means he must be having a fantastic time. "Oh, yes, I remember them."

"Tsukki's playing for the Sendai Frogs now," Hinata says. "Yamaguchi's in school and Yachi's interning for a design company."

"Oh? She was your manager too, right?" Atsumu asks. "She's really cute. Shame karaoke didn't work out between the two of you," he adds slyly.

"Oh, no, it was never like that," Hinata says, smiling at his phone. He doesn't even get flustered by the suggestion of it anymore. "She was more like a sister."

"It's a shame anyway—you two would have made the cutest babies," Atsumu says lightly, taking Hinata's phone and turning the camera onto the both of them. "How about we send something back, Shouyou-kun?"

Hinata leans in to flash the camera a smile, wider than Atsumu's own, but Atsumu snaps the shot like someone who's probably worked out his best angles because he looks even more handsome in it, the picture clear and sharp, well lit even though the restaurant lighting is a little dim. 

"How did you do that!" Hinata asks, sending the image over to the group chat. "It's a lot nicer than anything I ever take!"

"It's just lighting," Atsumu says, navigating back to the camera settings for Hinata to show him which ones to use when. He's demonstrating the best way to take photos of food when another message pops up—this time from Kageyama.

Hinata blinks. "He rarely says anything in the group chat," he says, swiping open the message to see what Kageyama sent. 

It's a selfie too, but he's having dinner at home, the kitchen light right behind him so he's almost entirely in shadow. It looks like he's putting up the peace sign too. The caption simply reads, _Thanks for the invite._

Hinata laughs.

* * *

"Atsumu-san," Hinata asks one day after they've ducked into another street Hinata didn't even know existed, turning into a small wooden door that kept behind it, as it turns out, the most amazing bowl of udon Hinata's ever tasted in his life. 

"Shouyou-kun?"

"How _do_ you know so many places in the city?" He's genuinely curious—he knows Atsumu's been with the team a while, but even Bokuto who's been around a year longer, or any of the other veterans, don't seem to hold the same encyclopedic knowledge of every little restaurant and eatery in Hirakata. 

"It's a secret," Atsumu says, holding his finger to his lips with an impish smile. "If I tell you, then no one else will come with me anymore."

"I'll still go with you!" Hinata promises.

Atsumu grins. "I'll hold you to it, Shouyou-kun," he says, scratching the back of his neck. "'Samu hears about most of these places from being in the food business. He's always wanting to try something new when he visits, so when we go somewhere I like and I wanna go back to it, I gotta take someone else."

Osamu's dropped by at practice once since Hinata has been there, taking the late afternoon train from Osaka after Onigiri Miya closed down and bringing a large bag of onigiri for the team. They'd devoured it in seconds, thanking Osamu profusely before he and Atsumu headed out to go somewhere. 

"It must be nice," Hinata says. "That Osamu-san lives close enough to visit, even if it's just for an afternoon. Your old high school's not far from Osaka, right?" 

"Yeah. There are still some of us that live nearby. Aran's in Osaka too, with the Red Falcons, so I think he hangs out sometimes with Osamu too. He's just really busy though. Restaurant's still pretty new, you know, he has to be there six days a week from a godawful time in the morning until maybe an hour or two after they close." Atsumu shakes his head, running his fingers through his hair. "He's a madman. Could've gone pro."

 _With me,_ hangs in the air unsaid. 

"Is that where you go sometimes?" Hinata asks instead, thinking back to the times Atsumu would show up for the afternoon practice with a couple onigiri to share with Hinata. "When we don't have morning practice?"

"Sometimes," Atsumu says. Then he adds, "Wanna come along next time?"

Which is how Hinata accompanies Atsumu down to Osaka one practice-free morning. "You didn't have to pick me up," he says, climbing into the passenger side of Atsumu's car and fidgeting with his seatbelt before he buckles into his seat.

"It's only a few minutes away, seemed weird to make ya bike over to my apartment and have you go through all that trouble."

The drive doesn't take too long—Atsumu puts one of his playlists on but they mostly chat about Osaka, since Hinata's not actually gone there since he moved.

"Not even to go to Doutonbori?" Atsumu asks in disbelief. "Well, it's kind of a tourist trap anyway, we only went there a few times and not since Kita-san found us—"

He's a different kind of tour guide from Bokuto. When he points out places they pass by it's not with the confident discoveries made by a transplant, the shops and storefronts significant not for what they are but because of what happened there once, a long time ago. There was the bakery the Miya family had lost Osamu to, during one of their trips when the twins were no older than five and Osamu had been distracted by the display case of baked goods and walked in by himself; the sporting goods store they'd visit with their teammates, and where the entire volleyball club had witnessed the most heartfelt confession—and the most earnest rejection—a classmate had made to their captain; down those steps, the one time Suna and Osamu had yelled at each other over a fight no one, not even Atsumu, knew about, not until it had sizzled over and erupted into a public spat and a week-long cold war.

"Still don't really know what that was about, actually," Atsumu grumbles, his lower lip jutting into a pout like he's personally still affronted all these years later.

Hinata doesn't know if Atsumu will ever find out, either, but it makes everything in Osaka stand out like they hold secrets, snapshots from the years Atsumu and his friends spent wandering its streets. Strangely, too, it makes him want to take Atsumu to Miyagi, wonder which places he'd show him, which ones hold memories so strong they're the first thing that come to mind when they pass by. Maybe the electronics store in town where he first saw the Little Giant play, or Sakanoshita's Store where they picked up their afternoon meat buns, or the steep slope of the hill down from the school to get there. 

They pull up at a parking lot near Onigiri Miya shortly after, walking in sometime after ten when the breakfast rush is over and before the lunch rush begins. Osamu's wiping down the counters, wearing a baseball cap and a simple black apron with the shop logo.

"My worst customer has arrived," he says drily.

"Shut up, 'Samu," Atsumu says, taking one of the seats by the counter. "I brought Shouyou-kun, so—"

"And it's the infamous Shouyou-kun." Osamu flashes Hinata a grin. "So I guess that means today's conversation should at least be a little less painful. Hinata, please take a seat, and don't mind my rude brother. Let me know what you'd like off the menu. It's not on the house, but I'll put it on his tab."

" _'Samu_ ," Atsumu whines, both of them locked in a staring contest that may have included some kind of telepathic twin-only communication, but eventually Osamu sighs and looks away. 

"Fine," he says, glancing back at Hinata. "Figure out what you wanted to get, yet?"

Atsumu leans over so their shoulders bump. "His fatty tuna special is the best, if you want my personal opinion."

"You can get more than one," Osamu tells him. "Depending on how hungry you are. I can make them pretty big."

"The tuna, I think! And the egg special, please! Thank you!" 

"Wow, he's got manners," Osamu says, a lot more lightly than Tsukishima would have said it, so Hinata picks up the teasing tone on it, but when he glances up, Osamu's smirk is aimed at Atsumu. "What's he doing with you, 'Tsumu?"

Atsumu makes a noise of protest, the two of them settling into a bickering that has the cadence of falling into twenty years' worth of tiny little arguments, a back-and-forth so practiced and familiar Osamu barely looks up as he prepares the ingredients for the onigiri and molds them in his hand, but the succession of childish expressions on his face mirror, pout by pout, Atsumu's own as Osamu mocks his brother's reactions. 

For a moment Hinata's reminded of the first time he plays against the Miya twins that first year they made Nationals, when they seemed so much older, so much more intimidating. It doesn't feel that long ago.

The onigiri Osamu sets down before them are massive, finely crafted and full of mouthwatering ingredients, bigger than the usual onigiri Atsumu brings back with him on his visits.

"Oh my god," Hinata says, eyes growing so wide it draws a proud chuckle out of Osamu.

"Enjoy," he tells Hinata, who claps his hands to give thanks for the food before he digs in so quickly he almost misses Osamu asking Atsumu: "Seriously, what's he doing with you?"

* * *

Summer in Hirakata is over before Hinata even realizes it had begun, the frequency of training and practice slowly giving way to team photo shoots, appearances, season preparations and meetings, practice matches. Pre-season games. Hinata is rotated into the lineup depending on who they're playing and where, spiking for Atsumu in a third of the games and playing with the other members of the team the other two-thirds of the time. He knows it's a tryout, not for the team but for the spot he wants.

There are four rookies among the Black Jackals. Sakusa Kiyoomi is signed right out of university. Twenty-one players on the team, twelve picked out in the official games, six on the court at any given time. Oliver Barnes, twice as long as Hinata and twice as wide, has been the Black Jackals' power cannon the past three seasons. Twenty-one players. Six spots.

It still feels like swallowing lead when the coaches announce the starting lineup for the opening game of the season. Sakusa will be a starter, replacing Imamura who started last year. Barnes will be a starter, and Hinata is given one of the six possible substitute spots on the bench.

"Congrats, man!" Bokuto says with a wide beam, clapping him on the back. "You'll be playing with us in no time!"

Atsumu drapes a long arm around his shoulders, tucking his chin over the top of his head. "C'mon," he says, "we gotta go celebrate."

"Yeah," Hinata says, even though he doesn't feel like there's anything yet to celebrate. "Okay."

"And then," Atsumu says, leaning close so only Hinata can hear him, "we can sneak back in here later and I'll toss you a couple more balls, okay?"

Hinata looks up. Atsumu puts finger to mouth, and grins. "Okay," Hinata answers, huffing the word out in a startled breath. The lead in his throat dissipates.

He still has a long way to go. He still has a long way to climb. He isn't done yet. 

That's okay.

He'll just keep climbing.

* * *

Hinata ran into Oikawa within the first week or two after he arrived in Brazil. It wasn't until the Japanese was rolling out of his tongue much faster than any Portuguese words ever could, and he didn't have to feel self-conscious about giving thanks for the food out of habit, that he realized he'd been holding his breath the entire time, and that he was allowed to breathe. The air in his lungs felt clearer, the heavy pressure in his chest vanishing with the familiarity of a friendly face.

He wouldn't have called Oikawa a friend from back home, their only interactions restricted to official matches that ended in alternatingly bitter results for them, but being from back home was enough, all the way out there in another part of the world as they were—and playing on the same side of the net had a way of reducing past rivalries into something a little more kindred, the way sharing food and swapping stories and going through the same things tended to do. 

Being from back home was reason enough to want the evening to last as long as possible.

Hinata wakes up sometime after dinner with the "Buy Me a Drink" Brothers to find the space beside him empty, Oikawa's voice muffled from inside the hotel bathroom, the light seeping out from the gap between the door and the floor. The clock on the other side of the bed says it's half past five so Hinata pulls himself awake, running a hand through his hair to tame them a little. 

"Sorry, did I wake you?" Oikawa asks, emerging from the bathroom—turning the light off before he did—and closing the door behind him. He holds his phone in his other palm. "I was just—"

"I've been waking up around this time lately," Hinata says with a shake of his head. "It's fine. It's the afternoon over there, isn't it?"

"Mm. Iwa-chan's text woke me up, so I figured I'd just go ahead and call so I can yell at him about it." Oikawa's smile is a little cheeky, but in the early morning light it comes out looking softer and fonder than maybe he intended to show Hinata.

He doesn't ask Oikawa what he misses, or who. Doesn't wonder if he regrets anything. He knows the answers to those, even if Oikawa doesn't tell him, because they're hungry in the same way, and their goals haven't changed in the same way. Oikawa will play on that stage one day. Hinata will climb that wall. 

Perhaps that was what made them kindred spirits more than anything else.

* * *

"You are _relentless_ today," Atsumu says, catching his breath and wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. "I like it. Shall we keep going?"

Hinata nods, too winded to say anything right away. "A few more tosses, please!" he says, after he gulps down a large swig of Pocari. "I can go a little bit more."

"Neither of you are going any more, _what_ are you two still doing here?" Meian snaps, strolling into the gym with a murderous look on his face. "Got a call from Wada-san saying he can't close up because there were two players from my team still doing drills. I told him, 'Wada-san, you must be imagining things. Why would my teammates do that, we already spent hours on practice today. We even gave them strict orders to go home and recover, so _surely_ I don't have teammates who would be so reckless as to ignore those recommendations?' But I guess I have teammates who are going to make a liar out of me today."

"I'm sorry, Meian-san!" Hinata says, bowing low to the ground. "I made Atsumu-san toss to me."

"No one can make anyone do anything they already don't want to do," Meian says, sighing deeply. "We've got games this weekend—Miya, you should know better than this, especially since you're starting. Hinata, you work hard enough at practice. Don't waste your efforts by overexerting yourself."

"Yes, Captain!" they say at the same time.

Meian seems satisfied with this, because he loses the hard edge of his earlier tone. "Alright, then go get cleaned up and go home. I'm not gonna wait for you two to do that, because I told my wife I'm only gonna be out a minute, but Wada-san has permission to lock up in fifteen minutes whether you're in here or not. And you probably don't want the coaches to find you here tomorrow morning."

"No, Captain!" 

"Good. I'll see you both tomorrow at practice." 

Hinata keeps his head bowed until he hears Meian leave, exhaling loudly when the door shuts behind him. "That was so scary!" he cries out, popping open an eye to look at Atsumu. "I'm sorry you got caught up in that."

"He had a point," Atsumu says, scratching the back of his head. "You didn't make me do anything I wasn't willing to do already. Guess next time let's just try to pay better attention to the time. Wada-san doesn't usually mind—" he looks up at the wall clock, wincing when he realizes how late they'd stayed— "But it's pretty damn late, huh?"

"Yeah, I should have been paying attention too," Hinata says, the two of them falling into silence as they wiped down and cleaned up after themselves, foregoing the facility showers to make sure Wada-san doesn't have to wait longer than he already has.

"Lemme give you a ride home," Atsumu offers when they head out, grabbing Hinata by the wrist when he makes his way toward his bike. "You can leave your bike here, I'll take you to practice tomorrow too."

"But—"

"Look, it's late and you're tired," Atsumu explains. "Let's just play it safe, okay? I'd worry if—it's how you can make it up to me for getting me in trouble with the captain."

"You don't play fair, Atsumu-san," Hinata mumbles, though he follows Atsumu into his car. It isn't until he sits down that the ache of the evening practice sinks in, heavy and tight around his muscles. He winces, realizing now that Meian had been right. 

"We're gonna feel it more tomorrow," Atsumu says beside him as he starts up the car. "Even Bokuto doesn't go this hard."

"M'sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about," Atsumu reassures him again. They sit in contemplative silence for a while, so drained of any energy neither can dredge up even the tiniest ounce of small talk until Atsumu pulls up in front of Hinata's apartment. He lets his car idle for a moment, voice low when he calls out to Hinata before he can say his thanks and hop off. "Hey."

"Atsumu-san?"

"It may not be this weekend, but I know you're gonna make your debut for the team this season. Okay? You're doing all the right things. Everyone can see it." 

Hinata nods. He doesn't think he can say anything until the lump in his throat dislodges, and he bites out a quiet, "I just really wanted to play in Tokyo."

He doesn't look up then, but he can hear the kindness in Atsumu's voice. "Old friends gonna be there?"

"Yeah." 

"I get it." Atsumu sighs. "They benched me a couple times my rookie season, did you know?"

"What?" 

Hinata jerks his head up, but Atsumu's staring straight ahead. The car is idling, but his grip on the steering wheel tightens. He shakes his head, then turns to face Hinata. "The coaches will make decisions like that for a lot of different reasons," he says. "Only thing you can control is how you show up every day in practice and how you perform in every game, so that you take away every reason they have not to play you. That's all there is to it. But you're gonna get your chance soon, and when you do, don't ever let go."

"Okay," he says. "Thank you."

"Good." Atsumu smiles. "Anyway, you're not the only one who made a promise. I said one day I'm gonna set for you, didn't I? Just so you know, I still plan to."

* * *

The season opens on the last weekend of October for the Black Jackals, at the Komazawa Gymnasium in Tokyo, where they are sponsoring the Saturday game against the Red Falcons and taking the visiting team role for the Sunday game against the Raijin. 

Hinata watches from his place in the sidelines as the Black Jackals edge past the first two sets against the Red Falcons, lose the third in a close back-and-forth, and squeak out a win in a tension-filled fourth set to take their three points for the match. He isn't called to substitute once during the game, but he makes sure he's ready the entire time.

The team is given the rest of the evening off since the match ends early, but are instructed to make sure they arrive on time for morning warm-ups the following day. Hinata takes a quick shower and waits for Bokuto before they head out, waving goodbye to the guys who were still in the lockers.

"Is Tsum-Tsum not coming?" Bokuto asks when he realizes it's just the two of them making their way out of the arena.

"He's meeting up with his old Inarizaki teammates and Osamu-san," Hinata says.

Bokuto grins. "Oh, that's right! Guess they're doing their own reunion too, huh?"

Two familiar faces are already waiting for them when they arrive at the Western-style restaurant a few blocks away, one of them hidden behind a hoodie and a face-mask that does them no good anyway when Bokuto waves at them, shouting, "Kuroo! Kenma!" so loudly nearly the entire restaurant stops to look.

Kenma shrivels further into the ball he's trying to hide into, but Kuroo just bursts out laughing. "Look who finally showed up," he says, grinning at Bokuto, who takes the seat next to him, and at Hinata, who beams back as he slides into the seat beside Kenma. Around them, people go back to minding their own business, though those who had just come from the match and probably recognized Bokuto keep glancing back at their table.

"Kuroo-san! Kenma! It's been a long time!" 

Kenma peeks out from behind his hoodie, his gaze softening when he looks at Hinata. "How are you doing, Shouyou?"

Hinata wants to say he's fine, but what comes out is, "Next time you come watch, I promise I'll be playing!" 

Kenma chuckles. "Okay, I can't wait. I'm sure it'll be fun to watch."

"How about you guys? How are you doing?" Hinata asks, gaze falling onto the Nekoma coach's jacket Kuroo has on. "Oh! Kuroo-san, didn't you take your students to the game?"

Kuroo waves his hand in the air. "I put Sanada in charge and told them to make their own way home. A couple of them got tickets to see the next match too, so they stayed behind."

"Yeah? What did they think about the game?" Bokuto asks.

"They think you could have taken it in three sets, not four," Kuroo teases, snickering at the pout on Bokuto's face. "But," he adds, "my wing spikers took a lot of notes… from Ojiro." 

" _Kuroo!_ " Bokuto whines, to the amusement of the entire group.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. You played really well, they were very impressed," Kuroo assures him. 

Beside Hinata, Kenma shakes his head. "He spoils Bokuto too much," he says in a voice low enough that only Hinata can hear. "You think he's this nice to his high schoolers?"

Hinata chokes down a laugh, swallowing it down and plastering a wide, guileless smile on his face when Kuroo catches them whispering and narrows his gaze at Kenma suspiciously. "Is Akaashi-san arriving soon?"

Bokuto checks his phone. "He says he's running late because of a deadline they had to make, but he'll be here." He looks up and gives everyone the thumbs up. "Okay to order ahead!"

Kenma hands Hinata the menu so he can figure out what to get, the table erupting into a spirited discussion about the merits of the hamburger steak versus omurice, eventually settling their orders down in time for the waitress' arrival. 

"I'm glad you guys could make it today," Hinata tells Kenma after. "I'm sorry I haven't been able to make it to Tokyo since coming back."

"I figured you'd have a lot to do, and Tokyo's not that close to Miyagi," Kenma says with a shrug. "I got your gifts in the mail though. Thank you. You didn't have to."

"It was the least I could do for all the help you've given me!"

"I really am looking forward to watching your first official match. Bokuto says you've been working hard, and he thinks it's going to be really soon."

"Ah." Hinata blinks, glancing at Bokuto, who was peering at something on Kuroo's phone at that moment, their heads bowed over the screen as they snickered, shoulders touching, soft smiles pulling up at the corners of their lips. "He's talked about me to you?"

"Mm, no, but he talks about everything to Kuroo, who tells me the stuff about you." Across the table from them, Kuroo makes a noise like a distressed meow at that moment, prompting an equally high-pitched meow in response from Bokuto before the both of them burst into giggles. Hinata tilts his head at Kenma, who just shrugs with resignation. "Sometimes they talk in a language only they can understand."

"Ahh." Hinata tries to remember the last time he'd seen them all together. Have they always sat this close to each other? "Are they—"

Kenma's mouth stays hidden behind his face mask, but Hinata sees the spark of amusement in his eyes. "No. Not yet. Akaashi and I are still hoping they figure it out on their own eventually."

"With those two? We might be waiting a while," says Akaashi, who shows up just then. He smiles at Hinata and takes the seat on the third side of the table, which finally pulls Bokuto and Kuroo out of their little bubble.

"Akaashi's here!" Bokuto cheers, and if they all end up staying long enough to order a second round of meals for a late dinner, well, no one seems to mind.

* * *

Hinata makes his debut with the Black Jackals on a bright Saturday in the middle of November. The Sendai City Gymnasium is called the Kamei Arena Sendai now, but the new name doesn't change the familiar smell of Salonpas in the air, doesn't change the way the concourse outside the gym area looks, even with all these food stalls set up. 

Sure, maybe the arena is dressed up a little more for the professional game it's about to host, with banners in Adlers colors adorning the tall columns surrounding the concourse. Maybe the crowds are bigger here than they ever were for a high school tournament. Maybe it smells a little better too, because instead of a hundred sweaty teenagers who brought packed lunches in there are more concessions, including plenty selling fried and grilled treats, fragrant enough to make Hinata's mouth water and his stomach grumble.

But he walks these halls like he's reacquainting himself with an old friend, turning the corner to find the same copper-faced art installation hanging high above the lounge area, peeking into the stadium to see the seats around the center court full of people already, the lights the same blinding level of brightness he'd always felt they were back when he played.

And he's playing today.

He's going to be playing down there for the first time in his professional career, but he has played on this stage so many, many times before.

But today Kageyama will be facing him on the other side of the net, like he did the first time they ever played, and this time— _this time_ —Hinata's going to show him exactly what he's been doing for the last three years.

* * *

They go all five sets. He's pretty sure they take three. The adrenaline rushes through his veins either way, as it has been from the moment the game began, and it doesn't go away even after they've lined up on the court and shaken their opponents' hands.

It almost feels anticlimactic, what happens after the ending—that Hinata follows his team back into the lockers, the hallways looking no more or less the same as when he went out to the court, his own body wired with adrenaline and weighed down with exhaustion as it usually is after any game.

Because this isn't the last game in his career—it's only the first. Today is not the culmination of anything as much as it is its continuation. He's going to keep playing. He's going to keep climbing. The season is just beginning, and he can't wait for the rest of it to happen. But for tonight—

"What a homecoming, huh?" Atsumu says next to him, once they've reached the lockers. He changes out of his jersey, grabbing a towel to wipe off the sweat. "I could hear all of Karasuno from the stands. Did everyone come to watch?"

Hinata grins. "Yeah," he says, picking up his phone and scrolling through the messages there. "Most of them were there. We're meeting up for dinner."

"Must've felt real good," Atsumu hums. "That reunion's gonna be real crazy."

"Probably," Hinata agrees, laughing. He already can't wait, and he's surprised how the eagerness to see everyone again very quickly supersedes the thrill of the game. "Hey, Atsumu-san?"

"Hm?" 

"Would you like to see Miyagi?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Team locations and V.League schedule/setup loosely based off [the wiki page on the 2018-19 V.League season](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%9319_V.League_Division_1_Men%27s), the [Panasonic Panthers' roster lineup](https://panasonic.co.jp/sports/volleyball/en/) (since they're the team MSBY was based off), as well as the [official V.League website](https://www.vleague.jp/men/team/v1), which was quite the fun rabbit hole as I've only ever closely followed American sports. Since we only know of a few teams I'll be borrowing some teams from the V.League as well.
> 
> Also, if I were reading this it would bug me, so in case it bugged you: I know Inarizaki is in Hyogo, but when I looked at the top high school volleyball club from that prefecture to hazard a guess about where they might have played, the school I found was on the border of Hyogo and Osaka, and just across the river from Osaka city, so it didn't seem a stretch to have them growing up near Osaka. (source: [interhigh results from JP wiki](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%85%A8%E5%9B%BD%E9%AB%98%E7%AD%89%E5%AD%A6%E6%A0%A1%E7%B7%8F%E5%90%88%E4%BD%93%E8%82%B2%E5%A4%A7%E4%BC%9A%E3%83%90%E3%83%AC%E3%83%BC%E3%83%9C%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AB%E7%AB%B6%E6%8A%80%E5%A4%A7%E4%BC%9A), run through Google Translate)
> 
> ANYWAY. Thank you for making it here and reading this far! AO3 is going to have some email delivery issues over the next few days, so the last chapter will be posted when that is sorted out, but kudos and comments are always appreciated! ♥


	3. Chapter 3

Life goes on, and it goes like this: the Monday after the Adlers game Hinata goes to practice, as he does for the entire week that follows, and when they play the next weekend, in back to back matches against the Sunbirds and the Hornets in Shizuoka, Hinata's placed in the starting lineup again. 

Atsumu had told him to take away every reason the coaches have not to play him, so that's what he tries to do, riding the momentum of that first match against the Adlers into the next three weekends' worth of games that he stays in the starting lineup for.

"Good work, everyone!" Coach Foster says at the end of the last match of the year, a grueling five-set game that the Green Rockets almost takes from them. "Let's take this win as the sendoff you deserve heading into the break, but I expect you back for practice in top shape next year."

Hinata all but collapses into the first empty bus seat he finds when the team piles into it later that Sunday night, ready to head back to Hirakata. It's only about an hour and a half back from Wakayama, but facing off against Goshiki and Kiryu combined had been particularly challenging, demanding a lot more from him that day.

"Ready to fall asleep?" Atsumu asks, taking the seat next to him and chuckling when Hinata can only muster a hum in reply. "Yeah, me too." 

Hinata watches through heavy eyelids as Atsumu takes out his headphones, mumbling a quiet, "Good game today, 'Tsumu-san," before Atsumu winds down with his playlist for the ride back. He pauses, headphones halfway to his ears, before he turns to Hinata and gives him a soft smile.

"You too, Shouyo-kun."

* * *

The following week is made up of mostly optional practice and mandatory team meetings—there are promotional materials to shoot for the team's marketing campaigns, sponsor ads, and some mid-season administrative work. It's still a lighter schedule than usual, so when one afternoon Bokuto invites the team out to dinner, he gets an almost unanimous response from everyone. 

Bokuto's so thrilled with this he almost forgets to call Senryou ahead of time, but the group arrives there early enough they're accommodated pretty easily, spread out in an area in the back that almost feels like a private room. The first round of drinks arrives, followed quickly by an order of "everything on the menu, twice" per Meian's executive decision.

"That should be enough to keep twenty athletes occupied for a bit," he says with a wry grin.

"Good thinking, Captain!" Adriah says beside him, stretching happily. "Not that I don't enjoy this winning streak we got going here, but I can't wait to go back home soon."

"You fly out on Sunday, don't you?" Inunaki asks from across the table. "Doing anything fun for the holidays?" 

"It's the holidays, it's gonna be fun by default," he says with a grin. "Always worth the long flight, but man I'm jealous you guys don't have to go very far." 

"It's only a few hours from here to Miyagi by plane," Hinata says, nodding. "And Bokuto-san's is about the same time, but by train, so that's even better."

"And this guy here," Meian says, pointing his beer at Atsumu, "just needs to walk down the street."

"Everyone else is coming home to _me_ ," Atsumu quips back, and the table erupts in laughter. His grin is careless, but the last time Hinata had talked to him about the coming break in the season schedule, Atsumu had sounded pretty eager to meet up with his old teammates again—they were going to have their reunion at Onigiri Miya after closing, he'd said, and almost everyone would be there. 

"You still having that team reunion, Tsum-Tsum?" Bokuto calls out from the other end of the table. 

"Yeah, we got the dates locked down finally," he says. "Even my old captain's gonna make it, and we'd kinda figured he might not, since he and his grandma moved to the country a few years back."

Hinata smiles. Atsumu and Osamu bicker a lot over many things, but they held the same level of admiration and respect for their old captain, and on the few times Hinata had gone to visit Onigiri Miya with Atsumu lately, the twins spent a good amount of time figuring out strategies to entice Kita back, including offering Osamu's apartment up for the night if he needed a place to crash, or finding a day that worked best for his schedule. 

"I'm glad you guys found a way to make it work with him," he says. "We're doing something for Karasuno too, and one of my old senpai's actually gonna be in the country for it so we might have a pretty complete group as well."

"Best part about the holidays, yeah?" Oliver chimes in, raising his glass to a cheerful toast all around.

* * *

Dinner turns to drinks, and though some of the older members of the team make their excuses and head back home sometime around the third round, the night is still young when someone—Hinata isn't sure who—proposes they take the party to the karaoke bar down the street. 

Pretty much everyone is into the idea, though Hinata catches Atsumu's gaze on him, eyebrow quirked up, as though to say, _Are you up for it?_ When Hinata winces, Atsumu just chuckles, but nods his understanding. He doesn't say anything as the team settles their bill, picking up their stuff and ambling out the door, but he does fall into step next to Hinata, hanging back at the tail end of the crowd. 

"Hey," he calls out to Bokuto, who's somehow latched himself to Sakusa and Inunaki, and is in the middle of convincing Sakusa to come along, even as he and Inunaki are not-so-stealthily leading him there. "You guys go on ahead. Don't have too much fun you don't make it to tomorrow's meetings."

Bokuto blinks wide eyes at them, and just when Hinata thinks he's about to protest he breaks into a beam instead. "Okay!" he says, just like that, no questions asked. "See you guys tomorrow!"

"How come they don't have to—" Sakusa starts, but Inunaki says something that Hinata doesn't catch, and Bokuto takes that moment of distraction to tug him along, and Sakusa groans but he also doesn't seem to be fighting too hard about being led away.

"Is he gonna be okay?"

Atsumu scrunches his face up. "Probably," he says, cracking into a grin not long after. "They'll take care of him. Omi-kun's not someone you can sway so easily." 

"That's true, but if you wanted to go with them too I can—"

"Don't worry about it," Atsumu tells him with a wave of his hand. "I _have_ been to karaoke with those guys—it's not any better than your last experience. We're not missing much, trust me. There's a reason they're all playing volleyball instead of becoming idols, you know what I mean?"

Hinata laughs, because Atsumu makes a very good point. Without really talking about it, the two of them start walking toward the main street, the early winter air cool against their cheeks, the walk brisk but not entirely unpleasant.

"You're not too cold, are ya?" Atsumu asks.

"No, not really. Are you?" 

Atsumu shakes his head. "I'm fine." He's bundled up in a long olive coat, the dark scarf around his neck thick and cozy, but under the street lamps his cheeks look like they're pinched red. "Hey, Shouyou-kun." 

"Yeah?"

"Ya think Hirapa's still open?"

* * *

Hirakata Park is running on late hours for the season, it turns out, though there don't seem to be too many people when Atsumu gets their tickets ("It's just to get in, don't worry about it," he tells Hinata, waving away his offer to pay) and the two of them walk in under the big neon sign advertising the park name and through to the entrance.

The entire park is lit up like a winter wonderland, icy blue lights strung above the walkways and glittery candy cane stripes wrapping around the lampposts, catching the shine and shimmer off the lights. Though the park opens up to different paths, Atsumu leads them down one of them with the confidence and ease of muscle memory.

"They used to do a couple of cool installations over here," he explains. "Some ice sculptures around wintertime, maybe, or lit-up art."

"You sound like you know this place really well, Atsumu-san. I thought only tourists went here," Hinata says lightly, his tone teasing. 

Atsumu has the good grace to flush. "When we were younger," he admits, "we went here sometimes. 'Samu and I with some of our teammates. It's not, like, as cool as Tokyo, or anything like that, but—"

"At least you guys got a park," Hinata says. "When I first went to Tokyo I thought every tower we saw was the Skytree."

"You didn't." 

"I definitely, definitely did. Would've been cool to have a park like this to go to back in high school. Maybe even a beach."

"Miyagi seemed great, though," Atsumu says.

Hinata glances at him from the corner of his eye. "You mean the one remaining konbini I took you to that was still open when we walked around?"

Atsumu snickers. "You're too harsh on yourself. It was very late when you got back after dinner. And our hotel wasn't exactly near anywhere you grew up, even if we _were_ in the same prefecture. There was a playground, though. I remember sitting on some undersized swings. Do they all grow 'em small in Miyag—ow!"

"Don't be mean, Atsumu-san," Hinata says, but he's grinning. 

As far as showing Atsumu Miyagi, that night after the Adlers game had turned into a bust, and Hinata had almost gotten them lost wandering around Sendai. He thought he'd remembered a bit more about it from when he played there, but a few tournaments per year and the three-year distance since had wiped most of those memories clean or changed up a few of the landmarks. 

But Atsumu had taken it in stride as they went looking for that one really great konbini with the best pork buns in Sendai that Hinata had been sure was _'just around the corner, it's like next to this Lawson's I swear'_. Twenty minutes and seven blocks later, they'd finally stopped by one that was still open, and picked up the pork buns they were selling, but Hinata isn't sure, even now, that that was the place after all. The pork buns there were good, but they tasted different than he remembered. 

Maybe he just didn't remember it correctly at all.

They'd walked past the playground on their way back, deciding to eat their pork buns there since the sky was clear and the stars were out, brighter than they usually had them even in a smaller city like Hirakata. 

But maybe that was just the kind of night that it had been, too.

"When am I ever mean to you, Shouyou-kun?" Atsumu asks, his tone losing the teasing edge it had earlier, softening into a murmur. "Ah, here we—whoa."

The path they're on widens onto an open area, the cool blue lights that guided them there giving way to the warm glow of fairy lights that blanketed every building and tree and decorative pillar in a soft haze. But it was nothing compared to the paper lanterns that lined the steps winding around what looked like a concert stage, nor the paper lanterns that were floating in the air, suspended in place by some cleverly hidden wiring, probably, instead of some kind of magic, but— 

"Wow," Hinata breathes out anyway, his eyes wide as he takes in all of the lights. 

"I don't—I don't remember them going this crazy before," Atsumu mumbles beside him, rubbing the back of his neck before he shoves both hands deep into the pockets of his coat.

"This is so cool," Hinata says, just taking all of it in.

They're quiet for a moment, gazes upward. It's like a hundred tiny suns lighting up the sky, too bright to see any stars beyond, casting everything and everyone there in a soft brightness even this late in the evening. Somewhere from far away the hour struck with a formal chime, and the lights began to blink in and out, in time with gentle Christmas music piped in—crooned, really—from speakers set up all around the park. 

"Oh shit," Atsumu curses, the stunted way he says it too funny and out of place for the warm mood everyone else is in, because sure enough, when Hinata finally manages to tear his gaze away from the lanterns, he finds that the people who had been admiring the view earlier had come together into cozy-looking pairs, leaning into each other in couple-y silhouettes against all the lighting.

Hinata laughs. "C'mon," he says, hooking an arm around Atsumu's and nudge-pushing him down the other way, because he seems to have frozen in place in the midst of all this suddden romantic mood. "Let's get out of their way."

* * *

Hinata flies back to Miyagi in the middle of the day in the middle of the week, taking the train home from the airport. He texts his mom once he's let himself in the house, asking if she wanted anything picked up at the store while he was there. She replies with a grocery list so he wanders out back to see if he can still make use of his old bike to get there. 

By the time Natsu returns home from school he's in the middle of preparing dinner, and she hovers around him curiously, a little suspiciously, as he chops up the vegetables and lets the beef cook in the pot. 

"It's curry, it's not that hard!"

"Yeah but if it didn't look or talk or smell like a volleyball I'm not sure you would've known what to do about it."

"It's a good, nutritious meal," he says, biting back the tug on the corner of his lips when Natsu rolls her eyes. "Athletes have to make sure they're taking care of their health with what they eat, too. Did you still have baseball practice today?"

"Duh," she says, shifting the angle she held her bat. "What gave that away?"

"But it's already winter," Hinata reasons. "Isn't baseball season over?"

Natsu shrugs. "We can still practice batting in the off-season, and we wanna be ready for the spring tournament." 

"Looks like you're working real hard to get there, so do your best." Hinata eyes the beef, deeming it ready enough for the vegetables to go in next. He covers the pot again, clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "You know, I don't think Karasuno has a girls' baseball team. They have softball though, are you—"

"I'm gonna play on the boys' team. Some teams do that, if the girls are good enough."

"Oh. Yeah, they do. But Shiratorizawa has a girls' team, and mom says your grades have been really good…" Hinata lets himself trail off, glancing at Natsu from the corner of his eye. She's chewing on her lower lip, but it doesn't look like he's caught her by surprise with this. 

Finally, she huffs. "They don't let girls' teams play at Koshien."

Hinata grins. "Ah. No, you're right. They don't." Last he heard, they don't even let any girl step on the field at Koshien, but Natsu must already know that too. 

She eyes the pot thoughtfully. "How long are you here for?"

"Just after the new year," he says. "We've got a game on the 5th. Why, did you wanna—"

But her stomach grumbles in hunger at just that moment. Both of them blink in silence, but the laughter bubbles out of Hinata before he can stop, and Natsu groans and covers her face in embarrassment.

"Go get changed, dinner should be ready in a bit," he tells her with a grin. 

It falls into something like a routine for the next couple of days. Hinata, used to a packed schedule but finding himself with little else to do once he's done with his workouts and drills, picks up the groceries and makes dinner for the evening, a mix of the homecooked meals he missed in Brazil and the dishes Nice and Heitor showed him how to make. Once, he drops by Natsu's junior high to see if he can catch her practice, but is spotted almost right away (and then subsequently yelled at to leave). 

He keeps a running conversation with the group chat, but this is their last week of exams before they can take a break. Kageyama apparently looked at the wrong week and booked a much later flight home than he intended and is staying in Oita a couple more days. Atsumu turns out to be just as talkative a texter as he is in real life, and he lets Hinata know he's been roped into providing free labor at Onigiri Miya, sending him a daily running commentary of the work there and the free onigiri he gets in return, complete with quickly snapped photos of daily specials and Osamu's unimpressed face and crossed arms as he's telling Atsumu to go back to work. Hinata sends him pictures of the meals he's making for his family in response.

 _I didn't know Shouyou-kun could cook,_ Atsumu says the first time he does.

_We can't eat out all the time. Besides, that's how you get a balanced diet._

_Hmm, sounds fake. Isn't that what protein shakes are for?_

Hinata snorts. _Please tell me that's not how you feed yourself outside of restaurants and takeout._

Natsu tucks her pointy chin against Hinata's shoulder, looking over his phone. "Hey, are you serving us charred fish today, or is that smell only because you're too busy texting Atsumu?"

"The fish!" Hinata yells, grabbing for the pan and taking it off the cooker.

He changes up the routine on the day of the reunion dinner with his old Karasuno teammates, cutting his workout in half so he can cook the family dinner earlier, leaving it ready to heat up when everyone gets home, and gives himself enough time to head out to the restaurant. 

_Guess today's a good night for reunions,_ Atsumu tells him along with a picture of the preparations Osamu's been busy with for Onigiri Miya. _He's been on edge all day, what a pain._

 _Better go help him out before he yells at you some more,_ Hinata shoots back before tucking his phone in his back pocket and leaving a note on the fridge for Natsu, then grabbing his bike to make his way out. 

A couple of his old teammates have already made it by the time he arrives—Shoji and Yaotome and Tokita, all studying somewhere nearby, wave at him from the table they've reserved; Ennoshita and Kinoshita are bent over the menu with Sawamura and Suga already nursing beers. 

"Shouyou!" someone yells behind him, and when he turns to look Noya's beaming at him with Asahi not far behind. 

"Noya-san!" Hinata screeches, running up to him in excitement. "How long have you been back! How was Italy! Did you really catch that fish!" 

"Oy, dial it down a little, why don't you?" Tsukishima says, irritated, as he walks past Hinata, Yamaguchi waving at Hinata on his way over too.

It doesn't take long for more of them to trickle in after that, Hinata finding a seat between Noya and Suga, trading stories with everyone and occasionally interrupted when someone else walks in—Coach and Takeda-sensei, Yachi, Narita, Tanaka and Shimizu, Kageyama. 

"You wouldn't _believe_ the car that dropped Kageyama off," Tanaka reports as soon as they take a seat. 

"Those curry commercials must have paid off big time, huh?" Suga says, a twinkle in his eye. "You know if you needed a chauffeur around Miyagi you should have called your old senpai."

Kageyama turns red, mumbling a quiet, "That was my sister," that half the room didn't catch before he takes the space Suga scooted over to vacate for him.

"Well, at least you didn't get lost on the way here," Hinata says. "Bakageyama."

"Hey hey, you two, leave that bickering for the court," Sawamura cautions, his grin wide. "It's much more fun to watch that way."

"We'll get you next time," Kageyama mutters under his breath, and Hinata can't help sticking his tongue out in response.

"We'd like to see you try."

"I just said!" Sawamura gasps, exasperated, to Suga's laughter across from him. 

"Ah, and it's just like the good old days," he says, wiping a non-existent tear from his eye. Down the table, Yamaguchi and Yaotome howl over something that seems to have come from Tsukishima, of all people, judging from the self-satisfied way he pushes up his glasses and purses his lips together, like he's trying to keep himself from smiling. It's enough to catch everyone else's attention and curiosity, Tanaka yelling at them to share with the class.

And it does feel a little bit like the good old days. Hinata has a hard time reconciling his senpai as adults with adult jobs and adult responsibilities, especially not with the way Sawamura huffs indignantly at Suga's teasing like he used to, or the way Asahi's gaze still startles whenever someone barks his name to get his attention, but it's there anyway, in the attentive way Tanaka pours Shimizu a drink first, or the way Ennoshita groans into his drink complaining about his rotation with a sympathetic Narita, or the way Noya backpacked through Italy just so he could fish for monstrous marlin.

" _How_ big was it?" Hinata gasps, eyes widening as Noya spreads his arms out to show him.

"I could barely hold it up it was so heavy! I almost tipped right off the boat!" he says with a laugh. "Worth it though."

"That's amazing," Hinata breathes out, glancing down when his phone lights up, a text from Atsumu that the message preview tells him is a picture of his Inarizaki reunion. He grins; he'll have to remember to get a picture of everyone later to send back. He pockets his phone and looks up, meeting Tanaka's curious gaze.

"Hey," he says, nodding at Hinata. "Never got to ask last time. How's playing with the Black Jackals been? You good down there?"

"Yeah," he says, still grinning. The games are good and the practice is exacting, his teammates are interesting and they get along in a different kind of way than Karasuno used to, and he's having a blast now but he's also looking forward to going back and asking Atsumu and Bokuto how their breaks have been, and telling them about his. "It's been really, really good."

* * *

"What kind of luck did you get?" Kageyama asks him when the five of them—Yamaguchi, Tsukishima, and Yachi included—go on their first shrine visit of the year.

The fortune Hinata has in his hands is harmless, offering neither terrible misfortune nor great luck, but he wrinkles his nose when he sees it's the exact same as Kageyama's.

"Guess this means we beat both of your Division 1 teams this season," Tsukishima says, looming over Hinata's shoulder. He's wearing a smirk that's entirely too self-satisfied, brandishing his great fortune like a prize. 

"They can't do that," Kageyama says, frowning. "That's not how it works." 

"He's just messing with us," Hinata huffs, sticking his tongue out at Tsukishima, who only laughs and turns back around, following after Yamaguchi as they descend the shrine.

"Half-luck, huh?" Hinata murmurs, walking next to Kageyama. "Maybe that means we split the next two matches, which means we win the season match-ups against you!"

Kageyama snorts. "Not gonna happen," he says, giving Hinata a smirk that means they're about to start racing— 

"Oy! It's crowded here, let's try not to injure any innocent bystanders on the first day of the year, please," Yamaguchi calls out from a few steps ahead, using the captain voice that Sawamura must have passed down to Ennoshita, who must have then passed it on to Yamaguchi. There is no other explanation to how easily he can suddenly sound so very stern. 

"Sorry Captain!" Hinata and Kageyama say at once, before they glance at each other and snicker. 

"When we get to the bottom of the stairs," Kageyama says, the corner of his lips curling upward.

"Until we get to the konbini," Hinata agrees, grinning right back at him. Their ready-to-race stances ease up, the walk down the shrine more peaceful.

"You're heading out tomorrow too, right?" Kageyama asks to break the short-lived quiet. When Hinata nods, he adds, "My sister's dropping me off; my flight's at noon. If you want we can give you a ride." 

"Oh, I don't leave until the evening. Thank you, though." Hinata looks up, the sun blinding on such a cloudless day. "This break went by so fast."

"Who are you playing when you get back?" 

Hinata scrunches up his face, trying to remember what the schedule was. Right—Atsumu had been talking about a bet with one of his old teammates. "Just the one game against the Raijin. You?"

"Green Rockets and Red Falcons." 

"Kiryu-san is amazing," Hinata says. "Last time we played him, he did this—" he waves his arm in the air, miming the action with a decisive _'BAM!'_ that startles a group of girls ahead of them— "Oops, sorry!" 

"Dumbass," Kageyama snorts. "Yeah, he's tough to play against."

"I got a couple of his spikes last time though, those felt _so good_ ," Hinata says.

"Bet they did. Their new setter's still trying to figure out how to play with his team."

"Huh. That's what Atsumu-san said too." Goshiki and Kiryu had been overwhelming enough on their own. In the hands of a more experienced setter, Atsumu had told them at one point during their last match, they would be in an even tighter spot. 

"He's smart about the game like that; he knows what he's talking about." Kageyama glances at Hinata. "He didn't back down from the attackers, either."

"You saw the game?" 

Kageyama frowns. "I watch every game," he says, as though asking, _'Don't you?'_ "He had you guys facing Goshiki and Kiryu head on, didn't he?"

Atsumu had said there was no way they could lose with the sets he would throw their way, and the words had been as good as dumping fuel onto flame. He set the pace, raised the bar, and dared them all to meet it. "He didn't think it made sense to do anything else when they weren't even really at full strength."

"Yeah, that sounds like him."

"What would you have done?" Hinata wonders, struck by the thought. "In Atsumu-san's place?"

"Oy," Yamaguchi calls out to them, and that's when Hinata realizes they've made it all the way to the konbini already, race forgotten. "You guys wanna grab pork buns here?"

"Yeah, sure," Kageyama says. He glances back at Hinata before following Yamaguchi into the store, the look on his face thoughtful for a moment, like he's considering Hinata's question carefully. But in the end he just shrugs, cocking his head at Hinata, the ghost of a smile touching the corners of his lips. "Does it matter?"

* * *

A tall, tall wall looms in front of him. But Hinata's getting used to the climb, the daily rhythm of work and practice and fighting for his spot every game, fighting for the win when he is. He's been climbing so long he doesn't know what stopping would feel like, what he would do with the burning need to keep going that drives him day in and day out, threatening to burst out of his chest like a supernova unless he sets foot on the court, palms fitting perfectly against a ball set just to him.

It's not a straight shot to get to the view from the top. Some days the coaches find a reason to sit him out, some days the team loses even when the coaches let him start. The next time they meet the Adlers, the game ends in a devastating, decisive loss, a reminder that they're not allowed to rest on their victories and the season is still up for grabs, that they're only as good as the games they play now, but it's nothing new, because he's never had it easy, and there's nothing that makes him try harder than when the wind is blowing against him. 

"It's a long season," Meian reminds them in the locker room after the match, the mood as somber as Hinata's ever seen it. "We got one more match this season against them, and if we keep doing what we're doing, we'll face them in the Final. We're not done yet."

Maybe all they need is sleep and some time away from the game, or the promise of something else on the horizon, because the mood is back to normal the next time the team practices, even a little bit lighter now there are sponsorships and mid-season promotions to cut through the intensity of what had been purely practice-heavy days. 

"All'm sayin' is, I'm gonna make my onigiri _really_ big it's gonna _have_ to drive up the bidding," Bokuto says, yelping when Inunaki whips a towel at him. "What!"

"No one's gonna want to eat a giant onigiri, let alone buy it," he says.

"Speak for yourself," Atsumu calls out from his locker. "It's a good idea, Bokkun, but mine's gonna sell for the highest price."

"You know you're not allowed to bid against yourself, right?" Sakusa reminds him as the rest of the locker room erupts in laughter. 

The team's been calling it Onigiri Week, part of a charity fundraising partnership with Onigiri Miya that Osamu had proposed early that season. Onigiri Miya would come up with Black Jackals-themed onigiri to sell for the week leading up to the team's weekend games, since it's going to be hosted for the first time at their home arena, and on top of that, the starting players would remake their own onigiri to sell for auction at the Saturday match. 

Naturally, it has the completely predictable result of bringing out everyone's competitive side. 

"At least we know Miya-san is on our side," Adriah says. "He's not gonna let his own brother do that." 

"Ya know!" Atsumu says, frowning. "See if I set to any of you lousy teammates next time!"

"Sure, like you don't already have a favorite," Inunaki shoots back, sly and knowing, and that second round of laughter at Atsumu's expense has him mildly huffy.

"Don't go mopey on us now, Tsum-Tsum!" Bokuto calls after him. 

"Do I got a target on my back today!" he whines enough that Hinata feels a little bad for him. 

"Don't worry, Atsumu-san," he says. "Whatever happens I'm gonna place at least one bid for your onigiri, so it won't get the lowest price."

Atsumu turns watery eyes at Hinata. "Not you too, Shouyou-kun?"

"Oy!" Meian calls from the locker room entrance. "Can you pick on Miya somewhere else, I'm pretty sure Wada-san wants to close up sometime this century."

* * *

It occurs to Hinata, moments after Atsumu texts to let him know he's coming up the building, that it will be the first time he's having anyone over at his apartment. The room he had back in Rio had been small, and Pedro had kept odd enough hours he didn't want to disturb him by bringing guests over, and Nice and Heitor had space in their apartment anyway. Since moving to Hirakata he'd mostly been invited over to other teammates' places—Bokuto liked hosting a lot, Inunaki had all the latest gaming consoles, and Meian's actually got enough tables and chairs for the whole team on the rare occasion they had them over for dinner. Plus he and his wife were excellent cooks.

Hinata's apartment is good enough for one person, maybe two, to live in, but he hadn't furnished it with any thought toward entertaining guests, and he's suddenly uncertain that he has everything they need after all, even though when he and Atsumu were talking about where to make their auctionable onigiri, they both agreed he probably had the more well-equipped kitchen.

"Sorry it isn't much," he tells Atsumu anyway when he lets him in. "Did you want something to drink?"

"Nah, I'm good, thanks. And don't worry, s'neater than mine," Atsumu assures him, setting down the onigiri ingredients he'd picked up from Osamu ("Even the rice?" Hinata had asked, to which Atsumu had replied, " _Especially_ the rice.") and glancing politely around. "How're ya likin' it?"

"It's been great!" Hinata says, giving him a quick tour before he gets Atsumu a glass of water and they begin setting everything out on the kitchen counter for the afternoon.

Atsumu had offered to help Hinata with making his onigiri—some of the guys on the team were happy to do it themselves, and others still were at Onigiri Miya today as Osamu oversaw their onigiri making—but Hinata wonders if maybe Atsumu had preferred to try and make his onigiri away from Osamu. This was, after all, Osamu's domain, and the twins could be both critical and competitive with each other.

But Atsumu is also much more forgiving company than some of their teammates, which is helpful because Hinata's onigiri needed poached eggs, and not only do his first six attempts fail miserably, but he also accidentally crushes the seventh as he's trying to fit it in the rice ball. Atsumu just gets him more eggs to work with, the two of them working in silence until one of them—Hinata doesn't remember which, but it could've been him—breaks, shoulders shaking with barely held-in laughter, and then both of them are snickering like a pair of kids. 

"Next time," Hinata promises once the giggling has subsided, "no fist pumping." 

"I'll try not to… egg you on."

Hinata snorts again, barely keeping his poached eggs from suffering another tragic fate. "Atsumu-san!" 

"Okay, okay, I'll stop, I'll stop." 

"These really are so tricky to handle," Hinata murmurs, wondering why he couldn't have been assigned something sturdier, like Atsumu's fatty tuna or Bokuto's barbecue beef. They're easy to break, easy to mishandle, cook them one degree too hot for a minute too long and they become a different thing entirely. He looks up at Atsumu finally, only vaguely aware he's been asking him something earlier. "Why egg yolks?"

"Wh- what?"

"Why am I egg yolks?" he wants to know. "I asked Osamu-san how he found out I liked tamago kake gohan best but he didn't even know I did."

"Well," Atsumu says, and it looks like he isn't sure what to say to that. Maybe he doesn't know too. "Your… hair…?"

"Hm, I guess," Hinata hums. 

Atsumu offers another theory, though. "I've heard that some people think you're like the sun."

"The sun?" Hinata frowns. Is that because of his hair too?

Atsumu tries to explain, but he ends up enlisting a series of things that don't feel at all like Hinata—bright, and brilliant, and impossible to look away from. Uplifting. He isn't sure how to reconcile that with the feeling that he's still rooted in concrete, some days, clawing for the skies. 

"Do I do that?" he asks, when he means to say, _I don't do that._

Atsumu's answer, when it comes, is gently spoken. "Well," he says, "just because the sun doesn't intend to, doesn't mean it doesn't, just by being himself."

He falls quiet at that, puzzling over what it means as he tries to also make sure he doesn't break any more eggs, or ruin any more onigiri. He's never much concerned himself with what others thought of him, unless it had something to do with what he could do on the court.

He wonders who thinks that about him. He wonders why they do. 

Beside him, Atsumu grumbles quietly, and when Hinata glances over, Atsumu's putting the finishing touches on his first onigiri, the frown gracing his face different from the one he wears when he misses a serve.

Atsumu in the kitchen—a little out of his element, a little uncertain—is different from Atsumu taking Hinata around the city he's known all his life, or Atsumu when he's setting for the team on the court. He's quieter, more focused, meticulous in picking out the details and no less determined to do it correctly, the tip of his tongue sticking out of his mouth as he shapes the rice ball to an approximation of a circle, eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration as he further sculpts the ball into an even triangle that fits his exacting standards.

He really is quite the perfectionist. Even in a team of professionals his attitude toward training is unrelenting and unforgiving, his standards for both himself and his spikers always set very high. It's couched in a veneer of arrogance and pride, big words that fall harder if he falls flat and fails to deliver, but Atsumu's never been afraid of being pulled down by the weight of failure, brazen in his certainty, his faith, in what he can do next to wipe those mistakes away.

Hinata's beginning to see the shape of the hunger that drives him.

He's having a hard time looking away.

* * *

Bokuto's onigiri outsells everyone else's by kind of an embarrassing margin, which offends Atsumu so much he's still grumbling about it a week later, digging through his kitchen drawers and finding an onigiri mold that must trigger the unpleasant memory. 

"I want a recount," he declares, "and they should've put size restrictions on the onigiri because he made one big enough for Godzilla to eat! Oh, can ya grab us drinks? Water for me please, you can pick whatever ya want. The glasses are in the cabinet next to it." 

"You should take it up with Osamu-san," Hinata says with a laugh, though he's fairly sure Atsumu already has, before heading over to the fridge. "Atsumu-san!"

"Hm? What?"

Hinata looks back, alarmed. "What happened to your food?" Because Atsumu's fridge is full, but only with neatly stacked protein drinks, juice, and sports drinks.

"Uh." Atsumu shrugs, scratching his chin. "I buy it? It's usually from a place the team nutritionist recommended, I'm not—it's not _unhealthy_."

Hinata squints. "Not sure about that," he murmurs, though now it's beginning to make sense why Atsumu's usually up for going out for dinner, as they had tonight before deciding it was still early enough they could watch a movie in Atsumu's apartment after. "Want me to grab the ice cream too?"

"Yeah, please," Atsumu says, crying out triumphantly when he finally finds the ice cream scoop he had been looking for. He waves Hinata over to the living room with his glasses and ice cream, emerging from the kitchen not long after with a couple of bowls and spoons for the both of them. 

"I can't believe all you've got in your fridge is ice cream and drinks," Hinata says, scooting over when Atsumu plops down beside him. He hands him the remote, which he'd picked up in between the couch cushions, and takes out two scoops of ice cream for Atsumu before he puts two in his own bowl.

"I can't believe you've never seen Blade of the Immortal," Atsumu chirps back.

"I was in another country!" 

"You've been in Japan nearly a year, you've had enough time to catch up!" 

"What do you think I'm doing now?" he asks, laughing helplessly.

"I know, I know," Atsumu says, turning his TV on. While Hinata had a better-equipped kitchen, Atsumu was the one with the big TV and all the streaming services at his place. He navigates his way through the menu, finding the movie that had come up at practice earlier, and which Hinata had admitted to missing entirely. "Tell ya a secret? I haven't actually seen this either."

"What!"

Atsumu laughs, scratching the back of his head. "'Samu and I were gonna go watch it in the theaters, but he'd just opened up shop, ya know? Got a bit busy for him, and then we just kinda forgot about it."

"Running a restaurant takes up a lot of his time, huh?" Hinata muses, realizing then that even though it seemed like Atsumu had stayed close enough home that he was able to spend a lot of time with Osamu, it was still a lot less than he used to see him, back when they were both at Inarizaki. Hinata can't remember a story about those days that didn't involve Osamu in one way or another, and it occurs to him now that maybe there's a reason it's been so easy to spend time with Atsumu, so easy to talk to him about Karasuno and about Rio. 

Atsumu's been unmoored, too.

"He's a madman," Atsumu says, not the first time Hinata hears it from him, but this time when he says it he almost sounds proud. "I did tell him we were gonna go ahead and watch it anyway, because he used to throw the biggest fits if I ever saw anything before he did." 

"Bet you did too."

Atsumu grins. "Shut up, of course I did. But his fits were bigger. Worse. He's terrible. But he said have fun, so we're good." He shifts in his seat, stretching his legs out to rest the heels of his feet on the coffee table, bowl of ice cream on his lap. "You can make yourself comfortable too, Shouyou-kun."

"Okay," Hinata says, opting to sit cross-legged on the couch, knee resting against Atsumu's thigh, but Atsumu doesn't seem to mind and Hinata likes the warmth. He leans back, resting against the back of the couch, and when Atsumu does too his arm presses against Hinata's own. He glances over as Atsumu presses play on the remote. "Hey, Atsumu-san?"

Atsumu turns guileless eyes at him. "Yeah?"

"I think this is the first time we're gonna be seeing something neither of us have seen before!" he says. "It's kind of fun, I think."

"Oh." Atsumu blinks, but a pleased kind of flush slowly blooms across his cheeks, the smile that follows just as charming. "Yeah, it is, isn't it?"

* * *

The regular season draws to a close in the worst part of winter, too cold to do almost anything else besides the daily grind of practices during the week and matches all over the country during the weekend. And though both teams' positions in the Final 6 are all but locked as the third meeting between the Black Jackals and Adlers looms in the near horizon, Hinata can't help feeling a spike of fresh anticipation when Kageyama texts him a few nights before the game.

_Ready to lose?_

Hinata pauses to send him a quick, _You wish!_ with a small huff of laughter before returning his attention to setting up Atsumu's TV. It turns out Atsumu missed quite a few things from the last year too, so they've been catching up on those whenever they had time. Sometimes, they've even skipped dinner out to cook for themselves, though that has so far mostly consisted of Hinata making use of Atsumu's kitchen to whip up curries and stews while Atsumu puts himself on cleanup duty.

"Oh? Is that Tobio-kun?" Atsumu asks, leaning over the back of the couch to look over Hinata's shoulder. He sets down the bowl of fruits Hinata had brought over and insisted would be a better snack than protein shakes and vitamin supplements and ice cream. "Can't wait to see us this weekend?"

"Something like that," Hinata says, showing him the messages in full.

"Those are some fighting words, huh?" Atsumu flashes Hinata a haughty grin. "But we'll be ready for 'em here, and at the Final 6, and then we'll knock 'em out at the Final. Because we're gonna win it all, yeah, Shouyou-kun?"

"We will. But you're starting to sound like Meian-san when he talks in the locker room," Hinata says lightly, ignoring Atsumu's protest when his phone lights up again with a picture sent to the Karasuno group chat. "Oh, Yamaguchi's out having hot pot with Tsukki and Yachi. And—huh. It's Koganegawa!"

"Why does that name sound familiar?"

"Did you ever go up against Dateko at the Summer Interhigh? He was their setter—" Hinata starts to explain, showing Atsumu the photo in case seeing Koganegawa triggers his memory, but his phone buzzes with a series of messages sent just to him. 

_He just invited himself over!_ Yamaguchi writes. _He's not even playing for Sendai yet and he's already blowing Tsukki's phone up_ , he adds, following it up with, _and he keeps calling him Tsukki!!! What's up with that??_

"Your friend doesn't sound too pleased," Atsumu says with undisguised delight. "Trouble in paradise?"

Hinata can practically hear Yamaguchi hissing, see the way his hackles raise like the surprisingly hostile, territorial cat he can be when it comes to Tsukki. "Yeah, uh—hang on, let me try and calm him down," he says, typing a quick _Koganegawa's just like that with everyone, don't worry! He's totally not Tsukki's type anyway!_ , and one last encouraging, _You should give him a chance, he's pretty great!_ before looking back up at Atsumu. "Sorry! Okay, _now_ we can watch Gintama."

"Are you sure? This might be more entertaining," Atsumu says, snickering. He picks up the fruit bowl and sets it on his lap, picking up a strawberry and biting into it. 

"Yes, I'm sure, and if I keep replying Tsukki's gonna notice and then he'll ask what's going on anyway," Hinata says, putting his phone face down on the table. He stretches his legs out next to Atsumu, picking up a strawberry from the bowl for himself. "It's better for Yamaguchi this way too."

* * *

Yamaguchi is calmer when Hinata checks his messages again, following his first response of _Fine_ with, _He's still too much, why doesn't he calm down?_ There's a disgruntled, _Even Yachi's laughing at his jokes, they're not that funny_ that is the last message for the next couple of hours, until Yamaguchi sends a text that says, _Hope you had a better time than I did, sorry for whining._

Yachi had sent a second group picture out to the chat, of the four of them post-dinner, standing outside the restaurant with wide smiles and reddened cheeks, illuminated by the soft glow of the street lamps. _Happy weekend, everyone!_ she adds as a caption.

 _Next time you see him, tell Koganegawa I said hi!_ Hinata replies. To the chat he has open only with Yamaguchi, he says, _It's fine, I really don't think you need to worry about him._

 _I'll keep my eyes on him anyway. Just in case,_ Yamaguchi texts back. _What did you think of Gintama, now that you've finally seen it?_

 _It was good,_ Hinata says, and right after hitting send, he adds, _I kissed Atsumu last night._

_OMG??? And???_

Hinata's thumb hovers over the keyboard as he pulls up the memory of Atsumu's fingers at the nape of his neck, his touch at the small of his back. The faint taste of strawberries on his lips. It had been late, later than they'd anticipated. The movie was long done, but neither of them made the move to move away, too comfortable and cozy and settled in the warmth from their thighs pressed next to each other, their arms touching. Atsumu's fingers falling to Hinata's wrist when he tugged at Hinata's shirt to catch his attention.

"Do ya want to stay over?" he'd asked, his face lit up by the dim glow of the TV screen. Outside, it had begun to snow. "It's gotta be too cold for you to be biking home."

"Atsumu-san," he'd said instead, and when he looked up, when he leaned closer, Atsumu bent his head down to meet him halfway. His fingers warm against his skin, palm pressed flat against his back. Sweetness on his lips.

Hinata types out a reply. _And he let me._

He grins at the lightning-quick _HINATA_ and _Does this mean you have a boyfriend now?_ that Yamaguchi sends back, the smile turning softer when Atsumu, sleep-soft and bleary-eyed, steps out of his bedroom and pads over to the kitchen. 

"Are ya makin' breakfast?" Atsumu asks, hopeful, like the eggs aren't already sizzling on the pan. 

"Mmhm, I hope you don't mind."

"No, why would I? I'm starving, so thank you," Atsumu says. His smile is a little dopey, still a little sleepy, and when he runs his hand through his sleep-tousled hair Hinata resists the urge to run his fingers through them too. Maybe this is what a long time coming feels like.

 _I don't know_ , Hinata types out in reply to Yamaguchi. _But I think I'll kiss him again._

* * *

A tall, tall wall will always loom in front of him. 

He continues to climb to see the view from the top—the Interhigh, Nationals, the V.League. Championships. The Olympics. He will always be climbing. The higher he climbs the more he sees, further and further up until the whole span of the world comes slowly into focus.

And the view from here, from where he's been and where he'll be, is nothing short of brilliant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Related, if you were interested: [Atsumu's version of the Onigiri Week scene](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23522386), and [a little bit of AsaNoya in this timeline](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23548006).
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with me and reading this—the time skip arc felt a bit personal to me, not just in Hinata's journey but in where we found everyone else. I tried to get some of that in this fic, so thank you for taking the time to read it too. Here's to everyone who's ever left home and had to find their way back. ♥

**Author's Note:**

> With huge, huge thanks to Ellen, who gave this a first read and let me talk things through. ♥
> 
> Thank you for making it all the way here! This started out as a one shot that ballooned in length beyond what I anticipated, so I decided to post it in parts. The next two chapters will be posted within the next week or so when I'm done editing them ~~and maybe before Furudate can joss my Kuroo headcanon~~. Thank you for your patience! 
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated ♥ and if you liked what you've read, I've written a handful of [other Haikyuu!! fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/works?fandom_id=758208) \-- so far the timeskip ones fall under the same universe/timeline, so I'll probably put them together in a series.
> 
> And I'm on [twitter](https://twitter.com/slumberish) if you wanna say hi!


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